


Shenanigans: Quarantine Edition

by aparticularbandit



Category: Agent Carter (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Jane the Virgin (TV), The Tick (TV 2017), Timeless - Fandom
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:42:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 50
Words: 63,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23607757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aparticularbandit/pseuds/aparticularbandit
Summary: Mostly a collection of unconnected stuff - probably from a variety of fandoms eventually - to help distract from the world for the time being.They don't have anything to do with the quarantine other than being posted to give you something else to think about.
Relationships: Jane Ramos/Petra Solano, Luisa Alver & Rafael Solano, Luisa Alver/Rose Solano, Ms. Lint (The Tick 2017)/Dottie Underwood, Peggy Carter/Dottie Underwood, Petra Solano/Jane Villanueva
Comments: 39
Kudos: 99





	1. Rose.  I know you are depressed.  But a comb!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're looking for Carterwood stuff, please go to chapter 3.  
> If you're looking for Luisa & Raf sibling stuff, please go to chapter 4.  
> If you're looking for Petra or Jetra stuff, that's the bidding wars chapters.  
> If you're looking for Jane, Petra, and JR, that starts with jane your judginess is showing and comes up in both jane visits roisa and mateo gets a playhouse.  
> If you're looking for Will Parry, he is in sperm donor.  
> If you're looking for Dottie/Lint, that's chapter 20.  
> If you're looking for Emma, she's in emma and janet have a sit down.

“Your hair is so—”

“ _Don’t say tangled._ ” Rose’s eyes flicker a darker color, flashing dangerously in the light as she glares at Luisa. “It’s not tangled. My hair doesn’t _get_ tangled. It’s just gotten messed up. That’s all.”

Luisa nods once, slowly, her lips pressed together, and then says, “It’s gotten _really_ messed up, Rose. When was the last time you brushed it?”

Rose doesn’t say anything.

“Do you remember?”

Rose still doesn’t say anything.

_That doesn’t bode well._

“Rose, it can’t _stay_ like this! It’s all matted and rough. A _bird_ wouldn’t even live in this mess!”

“ _But it’s not tangled_ ,” Rose says again, very firmly. She stares at Luisa. “ _You_ try to get through a whole _fake your death by falling through the ceiling onto a statue’s sharp tail and then having your body burned_ without getting your hair fucked up like this.”

Luisa’s eyes narrow, and she stares just as hard back. “You weren’t even really there. That wasn’t even _you_.”

Rose takes a deep breath, and her lips spread into a mirthless smile. “How many months did I spend in jail?”

“ _They give you combs in jail!_ ” Luisa places her hands on her hips. “And I _saw you_ in jail and your hair was _never_ this _bad_!”

Rose crosses one leg over the other and breaks their eye contact. “There were a few months there where you didn’t visit me at all, right at the end.” Her words are softer then. “I didn’t know where you were. I was…I wasn’t _scared_. Not for me. But I felt so…so _horrible_.” She turns her head to glance at Luisa again, briefly. “I didn’t think you were really leaving me, but there was a good chance—”

Her voice fades away, and she looks away again.

It’s been _months_ since Rose faked her death. Luisa had known at the first that the person holding Jane hostage wasn’t her, was a plant, a fake, a _something else that wasn’t Rose_ – although she hadn’t been able to tell exactly over the phone, she’d known as soon as she’d seen her. It’d been an act. She hadn’t _cared_ , and she certainly hadn’t _pushed her_. That had all been part of the act – Rose falling, Rose dying, Rose burning – but she couldn’t tell Rafael or Jane or any of them any of that. They’d finally believed Rose was gone. Dead. Like she had, so many years ago, before Susanna – _not_ Susanna – had pulled off her mask and revealed who she really was.

Only this time, there was no Michael to figure it out. There was no wonderful lady detective planting herself into their investigation. And there was certainly no criminal who left powdery fingerprints on a vending machine to get powdered donuts to charm her girlfriend.

…notably there _had_ been powdered donuts after they met again, but Luisa had been the one bringing those in the form of an olive branch.

Rose hadn’t gone to her island the way Luisa thought she might, and maybe that was smart of her, given that Luisa had, in fact, told the Miami police department where that island was. Even if they believed Rose was dead, there was always the chance they might go look for her there.

Still – it’s been months since the event, months since the two lost contact, and…less than months since that contact was regained. This isn’t the first time they’ve met, necessarily, but it’s the first time they’ve been really, truly alone and Rose has been…well, the Rose Luisa remembers. Sort of.

_But every time she tries to run a hand through her hair, it hits a snag!_

“You can’t cut it,” Rose says, giving Luisa a strong look as Luisa continues to try and brush her fingers through her snaggled hair. “You _can’t_ cut it. Or shave it. Or—”

“I’m not going to cut it.” Luisa leans over and kisses Rose’s cheek and it’s as easy as it’s ever been except that it’s not. “It’ll take a while to get all of this out, but I can....” She smiles, almost. “I remember when Rafael was a kid. Elena had _just_ left us, and he had this gorgeous long hair. He cut it all off a few days later because she used to always tell him it was gorgeous and he was four years old and he was full of spite because that’s what you are when you’re four years old and he wanted to hurt her for leaving him except she didn’t really care, you know?”

Rose blinks and waits for Luisa to finish.

“Anyway.” Luisa gets up and gestures for Rose to follow her as she continues. “He grew it out again later because it really _was_ gorgeous and my grandmother – Alegria, you mentioned her once, the one Papa named the vacation house for – was so _sad_ about him cutting it and we really did love her– He grew it out again, is what I’m saying, but he was always getting it tangled—”

“It’s not tangled,” Rose says as they make their way into the bathroom.

Luisa thinks that maybe _tangled_ is Rose’s _crazy_. She doesn’t like the thought. “I know _yours_ isn’t tangled, but _his_ was,” she corrects. Then she nods to her. “Strip, please.” Then, just as quickly, “ _Not_ because we’re going to do anything, because we’re not until your hair is better and you _promise_ to brush it and comb it and not let it get this way again, _but because I need you in that bathtub_ , and you can think I’m pampering you all you want, but you will rethink that once I start combing all those…all of that out.” She presses her lips together and turns away from Rose as the other woman slowly removes her clothes, instead focusing on the bath and the faucet and making sure it’s the proper heat because she knows Rose _hates_ cold water, _hates it with a passion_ , but she’s also not going to let the water be boiling hot either because if she wanted a shiny bright red skinned Rose, she would take her to a beach.

Of course, then Rose would be _sunburned_ and _groaning about being in pain all the time_ , which she doesn’t like either, but at least there’s the additional _lathering with sunscreen_ and then _lathering with aloe lotion_ and _Rose stays in bed and doesn’t move so can’t be killing anybody_. Which, on the whole, seems a lot better than a Rose who will be complaining about the pain in her head and who might be on edge enough when they’re done to go kill somebody.

Rose doesn’t kill people anymore.

She knows this.

It’s an exaggeration.

A joke.

She has to joke about it.

It’s easier for her when she jokes about it.

Rose slips into the tub, and Luisa begins to slowly knead her hands through what she can of her hair. “You’re not going to wash my hair, are you?” Rose asks as one of her long legs slowly creeps over the other edge of the freestanding tub.

“When I’m done, maybe. You’ll want it.” Luisa takes a comb and slowly starts to move it through Rose’s hair, holding the first knot in her hand so that she doesn’t pull on it too terribly. “Rafael’s hair was never quite this bad.”

“Rafael was a child who wasn’t dealing with faking his death so that the love of his life could leave him and be with his family. A family who, I might add, doesn’t really—”

Luisa gives a sharp yank on Rose’s hair. “ _Don’t say it because it isn’t true._ ”

Rose leans her head back just enough to glare at her, but she doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t have to. Luisa knows what she would say.

They fall into silence between them, Rose’s hands moving to grip the edges of the toilet as Luisa gets to the knots closer to her scalp, and as Luisa notices that she’s in more and more pain, she begins to hum and then, eventually, to sing. She doesn’t do it very often – she hasn’t in…in over a year, it feels like, since long before Rose went to jail that first time. She hasn’t had a reason to. And she remembers that whenever she’d sung before, Rose would laugh a bit, because she was so out of tune. She had a nice voice, she knew, but she couldn’t get the tunes right. They sounded right to her, but they weren’t. Not really.

This time, she doesn’t really sing a song she knows. Rose can’t say she’s out of tune if she doesn’t know the song. And she’s softer. And, eventually, she begins to sing one she _does_ know, one her mother used to sing for her so very long ago that she doesn’t quite remember all of the words.

The comb clatters on the tiled floor next to her feet, then, and Luisa slowly begins to move her fingers through Rose’s hair, making sure that each of the knots and problems are gone, and when she notices that they are, she begins to work her fingers along Rose’s scalp, massaging the skin she knows must hurt terribly after all of that.

Rose begins to hum. She relaxes, leaning back, and closes her eyes – and for a moment, just a moment, Luisa can forget that everything else has happened. It’s not much, but she leans forward again and brushes a kiss against Rose’s forehead. She missed this.

It almost doesn’t feel real.


	2. sleepy rose is sleepy

It was over seven years after meeting Rose that Luisa finally saw her without her skin on.

The cold fifth of July morning after their first meeting, Luisa had woken in that Fort Lauderdale motel room to find that the beautiful woman she’d been with had disappeared, leaving nothing but sweaty sheets and an empty packet of powdered donuts in her wake. During the years before her father’s death, the time they had together had been short, scattered, impulsive, without any warning – and Luisa was always so exhausted that by the time she woke up, Rose was already awake, the mask of her make-up back in place, her hair already in its meticulous waves and cascading across her shoulder. And by the time her father was dead, that was five and a half years spent and gone and never once was Rose in a position that could even be considered compromising – or, she _was_ , but not in the sort of way where Luisa could learn more about the woman she’d fallen in love with. More in the sort of way where she could hear whimpers and _please_ s and a million and one other little pleasures that…weren’t Rose without her skin off.

And then there was the year she was with Susanna, which was another skin entirely, and then there was their time in the sub, and Rose was _again_ always awake before Luisa was, going to the kitchen, making sure the food was all done and ready, making sure that her men were keeping the submarine in tip top shape, and then they were apart again—

_It was over seven years before Luisa finally saw her without her skin on._

She wouldn’t have even called it that if she hadn’t picked up one of Rose’s books during her insomnia and read through the entire thing in an attempt to get herself drowsy enough to be able to sleep. (Notably, it was a good book, and once she’d started it, she’d realized her mistake, but she’d thought it was one of those weird, boring legal dramas that Rose liked to read and which really _did_ put her to sleep whenever she tried to read them. All that legalese. Who cared? When were people going to start making out? Where was the sex? Where was the _intrigue_?) But she liked the phrase.

And it was that moment – when she was finally _finally_ starting to feel tired (and maybe it was the jet lag from flying to their current location from Miami – Rose, maybe, had already gotten used to its hours, but Luisa had _not_ ) – that she felt the mattress shift next to her, and she peeped one eye open so that she could watch.

Rose let out a little groan, muffled only by the pillow beneath her. Then she turned to face Luisa, and Luisa covered her eyes with one arm, her eyes still open, hoping that Rose hadn’t noticed. For a moment, there was nothing, and then Rose groaned again before moving off of the mattress. Luisa peeked out from beneath her arm, and when she realized that Rose wasn’t looking at her again, she peeked up over her arm so that she could see a little better.

As she walked away from the bed, Rose was _stumbling_. One hand was flush against the wall, feeling her way along it, and it wasn’t until Luisa watched her turn the light on that she realized Rose had her eyes squinted, half-lidded, and although she _winced_ when the light turned on and blinked quite a few times for her eyes to adjust, they were more adjusted more quickly than Luisa’s were. Rose yawned and scratched her head and stared at herself in the mirror for a few minutes, still blinking. One hand cast about the bathroom counter, reaching for something, anything, and as it found nothing, Rose frowned. She looked down, around. Then she looked back at Luisa, stared at her, and softened, relaxed.

 _She was looking for her mask_ , Luisa thought. She took a deep breath – Rose hadn’t realized she was still awake, had flicked the bathroom light off and padded on bare feet, yawning again, out of their suite. Luisa lay in the bed for a little while longer then slowly, carefully, got up to follow her, using all of the subtle silences she’d learned when she was younger and wanted to steal drinks from her father’s liquor cabinet. She moved to the suite doorframe and leaned just enough outside of it that she could watch without being seen – hopefully.

Rose leaned over the kitchen counter, pressing at the coffee button once, twice, _three times_ before realizing that wasn’t the way their coffeemaker worked. Then she stumbled forward, pulled the door to the fridge open, and without looking twice took the cold brew that was Luisa’s preference and which Rose said over and over again that she hated, unscrewed the top, and poured half of the bottle down her throat. She smacked her lips a couple of times, winced harder than she had when she’d turned the bathroom light on, and then scowled at the drink in that way she did when something wasn’t going the way she wanted and shoved it back into the fridge with a loud enough clatter that Luisa was surprised she hadn’t been wakened by it before. Then Rose turned back to the coffeemaker with the murderous glare that Luisa knew far too well and _this time_ she was able to get it working.

Luisa could smell the coffee from here. She watched as Rose stood in front of it, not moving, staring at it. And then, finally, Rose pushed herself away from it and over to the sofa, where she slumped down and stared with blank eyes at the outside world. It was then that Luisa decided maybe she should stop watching and start doing, and she crept out of the bedroom over to the sofa and leaned down to press a kiss to Rose’s cheek.

Rose didn’t move.

Luisa’s eyes narrowed, and she moved to the other side of the sofa so that she could see her better.

Rose’s eyes were closed; she had promptly dozed off in the few minutes it had taken Luisa to get to her. Luisa stifled a laugh and slowly moved her girlfriend – it was weird to use that word now, after so long not using it, after so long using _so many other_ words to describe the woman in front of her – and then curled up against her. Rose would probably wake up again as soon as the coffee was ready, and Luisa probably wouldn’t see her sleepy like that in a long time, but she was glad to know she wasn’t the only one who was inept when she first woke up.

She curled her head against Rose’s chest, felt herself relaxing, and finally – _finally_ – drifted off into sleep.

When Rose woke up again to Luisa suddenly curled up against her, she stared at her, blinking. Then she smiled, ignoring the smell of the coffee, and settled herself a little better on the couch, slowly brushing her hand through Luisa’s dark waves.


	3. scars

You regain consciousness on a soft feather bed without waking up.

The mattress is far softer than anything you’ve ever felt before, outside of Tony Stark’s mansion – the comforter just as plush beneath your fingertips – and your wrist aches with fondness for the rope holding you in place, likely attached to something wooden they think you can’t break. No, this is Peggy. She’s smarter than that.

You are certain, then, that you are in one of Stark’s mansions. You want to smirk, but you don’t. No need to let them know that you’re conscious before it’s worth it.

Peggy is coming. You can smell her before you hear her – talking to someone, the door creaking open, and then it’s excuses, reasons why _she_ should be in here with you but _no one else_ , and you think that’s her British stubbornness or, more likely, her idea of virtue and the fact that she has left you lying near nude on top of this bed – and when the door shuts behind her with a click, stifling whoever it is out there speaking (you think it’s Jeeves because he has that same accent Peggy does, all stiff and proper when you know she’s anything but), it thrusts the scent of her over to you, stronger than before.

Whatever the scent is, you haven’t been able to exactly identify it yet, but you know that it’s her and that it’s Peggy because no one else – _nothing_ else – smells as sweet as she does.

You’re curious as to what Peggy Carter wants with you unconscious and naked on her bed.

Curious and more than a little amused.

She doesn’t move from the door, instead pressing her whole weight against it. You know because you could hear her footsteps if she moved closer to you, and she’d seemed _wounded_ when you saw her earlier. They do not teach British soldiers to withstand torture the same way you were taught in the Red Room. She has not had to pull her own fingernails out with her teeth, neither has she had to light her skin on fire with a blowtorch. All of these scars and more, hidden places where they won’t be seen except by intimate men and intimate situations, and they’re more intent on letting their hands explore and their need be satisfied than actually _looking_ at her. With the light off, they don’t notice – or if they do, they don’t care to mention it. You all live in a postwar time now. Maybe they _expect_ their women to look like you do.

Peggy pushes herself off from the door – again, you know by hearing, by the creak of the door as she finally moves away from it – and she groans a little bit, puts her hand – _where, child, do you know where?_ You can hear the press against fabric; you think from the folds of it and the way she’d moved earlier that it must be in her abdomen, but you cannot be exact. You think, with your eyes closed, you could find it, if you were close enough.

You hear the scuff of one foot along the floor. You know how Peggy walks. That’s her left foot, so it’s in her left side. It must hurt to walk. Fascinating.

She’s close enough that you could grab her, if you wanted.

You don’t.

This close, the scent of her is almost overwhelming.

Almost.

You’ve been closer.

You kissed her, after all.

Nineteen years old, almost twenty, and you are an adult.

You tell yourself that, but you’re not sure what it means.

Peggy bends over you – wimpers, and you think that’s the pain until she brushes the back of her nails across your face. It’s hard not to flinch, not to open your eyes, and you wonder if that’s why she did it in the first place, to try and catch you off-guard. Then she’s sitting next to you, the mattress is thick beneath the weight of her, and her fingers run across the first of many, many scars. They’re interlaced. Her fingers move from one to the next and spread out and still don’t reach the end of them.

“What did they do to you?”

 _Nothing_ , you don’t say. _I did most of that myself._

Some were from other girls in your year before you killed them (or before they killed each other; it wasn’t important _which_ , only that, in the end, you were the last one standing). On graduating, they fixed you – whatever that meant – you knew that there were new scars in places your fur would hide easily enough and that now, whenever someone hurt you, you healed faster and didn’t scar. This was important; how else would you have escaped after Peggy threw you out the window?

Peggy stops, and you know that she is staring at you.

She takes a deep breath.

Then she moves from the bed, comes back with the rustling of other fabric, and unties the rope around your wrist before she slowly tries to pull you into enough of an upright position that she can force something down over your head. A dress, maybe. It feels like a dress. You are deadweight, and you take great delight in leaning against her, face on her shoulder, arms dead across her thighs.

She lets her head rest on yours, and the scent of her is overwhelming.

You reach out and your hand finds a squicky mess in her side, and you turn your head just enough so that your lips brush the skin of her neck.

“Dottie?”

She freezes beneath you.

“You’ve made a mess of yourself, Peg.” Your eyes flutter open, and you don’t have to glance down to feel her blood warm and sticky against your palm. “Let me see.”

“I will most certainly not—” She stops. You don’t know why she stops. You haven’t pressed down on the wound or anything like that. You _did_ grab the rope, but you haven’t done anything with that either. Not yet. That wouldn’t be any fun at all.

You brush your nose along her neck. “What have they done to you?”

“Nothing.” Peggy is tight-lipped when you finally move back enough to look at her face-to-face. “I did most of that myself.”

You smile. It’s a joke. Just for you and me. Don’t tell anyone.

“I showed you mine.” You pull your _innocent_ face, even though you know that means beans to Peggy Carter, and you keep that hand on her waist. “Now you show me yours.” You bat your eyes at her. “Oh, I won’t _hurt_ you. I’m not that petty.” The smile drops because you don’t need it anymore. “We can both be nice, can’t we? And then I’ll go back to playing whatever little game it is you have in mind.”

Whatever it is sounds so much more fun than prison did, and no matter what Peggy has up her sleeves, you know that you’ll get away from her in the end. It’s just another game. She only caught you the first time because you wanted to be caught. You just didn’t expect her to be taken away so soon. A miscalculation. You won’t do it again.

Peggy doesn’t trust you. She doesn’t believe you. You aren’t lying. Why would you be lying? That’s not your style. Not with Peggy. You just give her little breadcrumbs and watch to see what she’ll do with them.

Hannibal Lecter has not been invented yet, and you wouldn’t appreciate the comparison. He’s cruel. You aren’t. Just bored.

Besides, if he _had_ been invented, you don’t think he would ever understand what it would be to be a nineteen year old girl with a brain torn apart and stitched back together by Russian scientists wanting a war machine comprised of ballet and assassin work and the mimicry of a serum used to make America’s own super soldier now frozen who knows where. (You don’t think he’s dead because _you_ wouldn’t be dead. But it’s not any fun to tell Peggy that.)

You sigh and move your hand away from the wound. “ _Please._ That _is_ the magic word, isn’t it, Peg? _Please?_ ”

Peggy takes a deep breath, and the shirt is off all at once. Quicker than you thought it would be. She messes with the gauze wrapped around her torso, but you peel it away. It’s a nice hole – straight through from one side to the other – and you’d almost ignore the other, smaller scars just to focus on this one, but you don’t. You can’t.

“What did you do to yourself, Peg?” You run your fingers across the wound – it’s pulled its stitches apart, and you think this isn’t the first time, given Peggy. “You need a better doctor.”

“Are you done now?” Peggy’s face is taut with pain, and all you’ve done is _touch_ the poor thing.

You think she needs something better than whatever it is they’re offering her. Your gaze drifts to the thin of your skin, and you don’t even think about it before you use your teeth to rip through the soft flesh just beneath the scars around your wrist. The wound will heal enough eventually.

Blood to blood – your arm to her wound – and you know it doesn’t quite work that way, but you think it might, and almost as soon as you’ve put the two together, she flinches away from you, and you look up with eyes like steel. “ _Stay still._ ” It’s a hiss. You don’t hiss around Peggy.

Her eyes search yours. “What are you doing?”

“Don’t make me carve open my arm again, Peg.”

She doesn’t flinch when you press your wound to hers again and only stares when you move your wrist away. The pain’s long gone; you know that you’ve stitched yourself back together again, and you show her the wound that is no longer a wound, the scar that should be not appearing in the slightest. Then you nod to the wound. “Get better soon. You’re no fun like this.”

Then you slump back on the bed like deadweight, close your eyes again, and let the rope fall from your fingertips. Call it a point. You’ve earned a point. They’ve all been your points, really. Peggy just doesn’t like to play as fair as you do.

Sometimes, she reminds you of Marya Morevna, although you wouldn’t tell her that. She wouldn’t get the reference. You think you wish you were Ivan, but you know that you’re Koschei the Deathless, locked up in the basement, kept secret from the good Ivan her husband. Isn’t that the way the story goes?

She tries to lift your body, but you are deadweight now. “Dottie, move.”

You open your eyes. “I want to know how you thought you would move me without help.” Your gaze moves back to the wound. “You can’t lift me.” It doesn’t occur to you that now that you’re clothed her British virtues mean nothing, and when it _does_ , you wonder why she hasn’t called for help by now. You think maybe she enjoys this just as much as you do. Or she doesn’t want to endanger any of her friends.

“The chair, please.”

You stand, and the dress drops. “Zip me up first.”

This time there are no fingers brushing along the numerous scars you know are on your back, only the gentle warmth of her touch as the zipper is moved. “What did they do to you?” she asks again as you move to the chair.

“Naughty, Peggy. If you won’t give me your secrets, don’t ask for mine.” Your hands grip the arms of the wooden chair. “Now tie me up.” You gesture to the rope. “It’ll make you feel better.”

She looks at you, and you think it’s something like pity. You hate being pitied. There’s nothing to pity. You close your eyes again. Deadweight. Just like she wanted.

You don’t even flinch when she sits across from you and tries to do your make-up, but you do grab her wrist and open her eyes and press your lips together. “Let me do it, Peg. It’ll look so much better. Since you aren’t _tying me up_.”

Her eyes narrow. She stares at you. Then she hands you the brush.

“Thank you.”

When you’re done, you stare at her, and you smile. “Here,” you say, “let me knock myself out this time. Thirty minutes should be good enough, right?”

“ _Dottie—_ ”

You ram your head back, and you fall back into unconsciousness again.


	4. random little prince scene

“Please, sir. Draw me a sheep.”

Rafael hung his head, pinched the bridge of his nose, and groaned. “Luisa, this really isn’t the—“

“ _Please_ , sir!”

Luisa stood next to him, mischievous grin on her face, and leaned up against him, grabbing one of his arms with both her hands. When he turned to look at her, she feigned need, widening her eyes and letting her grin drop completely, _begging_. “Draw me a sheep!”

“Luisa, that is a _shit_ book, and I don’t know French, and this is really absolutely not fair of you.”

But Rafael sat down at the bar in his hotel room anyway, pulling out a pin. “Do you at least have a piece of paper?”

Luisa slapped one down on the counter in front of him, the grin returning. “I have an IQ of 152, and you think I don’t come _prepared_ when I ask someone to draw something for me?”

Rafael just let out another groan, did a quick sketch, and passed it to her.

“No, no, that’s no good. Look at his little stick legs! He’s sick. Try again.”

Rafael’s teeth grit together, but he did another quick sketch and passed it to her.

“Raf. Look. Horns. _Really?_ I know you’re not as smart as I am, but _honestly_ , you should know better than to give a sheep horns.”

He took the sheet back from her and added a few more.

“Okay, now with the pointed tail and the pitchfork and the weird little beard…thing, this is _obviously_ a goat. I asked you for a sheep.” Her eyes squinted at the drawing in her hands. “You try again, and I’m going to go _burn_ this.”

Raf had already started on his next sketch but stopped at her words. “Luisa, don’t!”

But she already had the drawing of the evil goat-sheep lit, the lighter pulled out of one of his drawers (how did she always know which drawer?), and it burned down to nothing in her fingers. She rubbed her fingers together with a grimace. “Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!”

“ _Luisa._ ”

“What, I thought if it burned down to nothing it wouldn’t _hit me_.”

“You and your IQ of 152.” Rafael pulled her hands together in his, glancing at them. “It doesn’t look bad to me.”

“Yeah, well, _you’re_ not the medical doctor.”

“You lost your license. _Years_ ago.”

“Okay, well, you’ve never _been_ a medical doctor. So there.” She pulled her fingers out of his grasp and looked at them herself, then glanced over her thumb. “Yeah, okay, I guess you’re right, I’ll be fine.” Then she pulled up in one of the stools next to his counter and looked over the next drawing. “Look, Raf, you’re getting worse at this. This sheep is _all_ stick figures and thin and sickly. He’s worse than the first one! C’mon, you’re _better_ than this.”

“Ok, fine.” Raf took another sheet of paper and sketched a rough outline before handing it back to her.

“What. Is this?”

“It’s a box.” He pointed with one end of his black pen. “And see? Look. It has air holes.”

“Raf, I didn’t ask for a box, I asked for a _sheep_.”

“Oh, you’ve got a sheep.” Raf smiled smugly, leaning back against his stool. “It’s right there. In the box.”

Luisa blinked, looking at the box, then turned to her brother and gave him a good whap on his arm. “Asshole.”

Rafael scooted back away from her second hit and laughed. “Hey, that’s what they do in the book, it should be good enough for you.”

Luisa stopped, her lips pursed into a pout, and she looked down at the drawing again. “Yeah, okay, loophole around it.” She traced a finger around the outline of the holes in the side of the box. “It is a very cute sheep.”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it. You got your sheep. You good now?”

“No, Raf. You’re getting obsessed with all this…this _stuff_ again. You should draw more. With your kids?”

“The ones you’ve never met?”

“Ouch, Raf. Salt in the wound. That’s _your_ fault, by the way. It’s not like I wouldn’t be the greatest aunt in the world and _you know it_.”

“When you aren’t drinking.”

“I haven’t been drinking. And I wouldn’t drink around the kids. _And_ ,” she continued without pausing to take a breath, “there’s the term _cool wine aunt_ for a reason. You **know** that’s my title.”

“Lu, you can’t have wine.”

“I _can_. Wine won’t get me drunk.”

“Lu, you’re not supposed to drink.”

Luisa made a wobbly motion with one hand. Then her face steeled. “I wouldn’t drink around your kids, Raf.”

“I know.”


	5. Luisa and Rose and Cooking and Jalapenos

Luisa feels a familiar presence nuzzling at her neck as she cooks, and she turns to press a quick kiss to her lips. “ _Hey, there._ ” Her eyes light up as they meet Rose’s, and she grins. “Miss me?”

“Always,” Rose says, and she nuzzles a little closer to her, brushing her nose against her neck. “What’re you cooking?”

“I don’t know.” Luisa hisses, and she pulls her fingers back from the pan, where a spit of olive oil has just popped them while she wasn’t watching. She turns back to the pan and sticks her sore fingers in her mouth, speaking around them as she says, “I just pulled a bunch of stuff out that I thought would be good together.”

Rose rests her head on Luisa’s shoulder and peers down into the pan. “Looks like pasta. Smells like—” Her nose wiggles and then scrunches up. “Spicy.”

“That’d be the jalapenos.”

Rose’s eyes widen, and she blinks twice. “When did we get jalapenos?”

Luisa scoffs and brushes her fingers against the fabric of her short shorts, drying them off. “I bought them at that farmer’s market two days ago! And tomatoes and more tea leaves and a bunch of apples and—”

“Please tell me you didn’t put apples in this.”

“ _No_ ,” Luisa spins around to face Rose, leaving barely enough space between herself and the stove. “I already used those when we had that apple pie. And you don’t put apples in pasta! I’m not _that_ bad at cooking.” She frowns. “ _You’re_ that bad at cooking.”

Rose frowns and kisses the tip of Luisa’s nose, grinning at her scowling reaction. “I know better than to put apples in pasta.”

“You’d put _donuts_ in pasta if you thought you could get away with it.”

“They’re good!”

“ _Not in pasta!_ ”

Rose sticks her hands in Luisa’s back pockets and leans forward just the slightest bit so that their noses just touch. “It would have to be a sweet pasta,” she murmurs, “with a strawberry sauce. Or cherry. Or—”

“ _White chocolate_ ,” Luisa finishes for her, and she hums pleasantly. “I could be convinced to try and make one of those.” Her eyes widen all at once. “But not right now. And no donuts in this pasta. You don’t make _spicy_ donuts. That wouldn’t taste good.”

“Ok.” Rose leans forward a little bit more, pressing Luisa back up against the edge of the stove. Then she presses another kiss to her neck. “How much longer is this going to take?”

Luisa relaxes. Then she feels the heat of the stovetop up against her back. She winces. “ _Not now_ , Rose! That _hurts_!” She pushes Rose off of her and sighs at Rose’s immediate look of displeasure and hurt. “You can’t push me up against a hot stove. It _burns_.”

Rose pouts. “I thought you _liked_ to mix pain with your pleasure.”

“After we eat.” Luisa reaches forward and cups Rose’s cheek. “After I’m done cooking.” She steps forward, flush against Rose, and kisses her. When she pulls back, she meets Rose’s eyes. “And I’m only saying that because the last time I let you distract me, we ended up with a fire and your mask _melted_ and you almost got caught by the police and I’m _not_ risking that again.”

Rose nods slowly as she speaks. “I don’t have a mask here.”

“ _Rose, I’m not going to burn my creation just because you want to have sex!_ ” Luisa laughs. “Or because _I_ want to have sex. Or—” She glances back to the food cooking on the stove then takes Rose’s hands and places them on either side of her waist. “Five minutes?” She turns back, batting her lashes at her girlfriend. “Can you give me five minutes?”

Rose grins, smug. “I think I can wait five minutes.”

Luisa gives her a onceover, and then she’s smug all at once. “I think you’ll take whatever I give you, Miss Terrifying Crime Lord.” Her thumb brushes along Rose’s lips, pulling the lower one down. She lets her gaze focus on Rose’s lips, and she can feel Rose leaning forward to her to broach the gap between them and intentionally moves away. “So it might be five minutes, and it might be _longer_.” She turns back to the pasta and stirs it a few times to make sure it hasn’t stuck to the bottom of the pot while she was distracted (however happily it may have been).

Then Luisa pauses, and her eyes widen, and she stares down at her hands. “ _Also you might want to wash your face because I definitely forgot to wash my hands after chopping the jalapenos and if you get any of that in your eyes it’s going to sting like hell and I should probably wash my hands so I don’t forget and rub my eyes but now it’s all over the pan and the spoon so I guess I’m going to have to wait—_ ”

“ _Luisa!_ ”

Rose jumps backward – suddenly there is all that space between them and Luisa aches for that distance to be closed again. It doesn’t take much effort at all to turn back to her girlfriend with a wince and an awkward grin. “ _Sorry_ , Rose. I wasn’t thinking, I was _cooking_ , and when I’m cooking, I get into the cooking spirit, and I just chopped things up and put them in with huge sticks of butter _and it’ll all taste good when it’s done, but you need to go wash your face._ ” She winced. “You should probably just wash—” Her eyes widen, and she grins, suddenly smug again. “Strip for me, and then I’ll join you in the shower when this is done.”

“Luisa, I don’t need a _shower_ just to get all of the—” Rose stops as she realizes what Luisa is suggesting. Now it’s _her_ turn to do a onceover, her tongue flicking out to lick her lower lip, and she nods once. “I’m not going to reward your mistake with a striptease,” she says, her voice hesitant, “and you better make sure _all_ of that is off of your fingertips before you try to—”

“ _I’ll be careful, Rose, I was an OB/GYN, I know how to be careful._ ” Luisa sticks her tongue out. “Now _go_. And don’t use up all the hot water!”


	6. university stud follow up pt. 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This follows the University Stud chapter of Pick Up Lines! It's chapter 21. ^^

Rose lies when she tells Luisa that she will fall asleep soon enough, and the other girl brushes their noses together, gives her one last kiss, and then falls asleep curled up just against her chest. She waits long enough to be certain that Luisa is unconscious – which she doesn’t know yet is not an issue because Luisa sleeps like the dead – and then begins the process of untangling herself. She wraps Luisa’s arms around a pillow instead, and although Luisa’s face scrunches up unhappily for a few moments and she murmurs something that sounds almost like _you don’t feel quite like marshmallows; they’re too sweet_ , she doesn’t wake up.

She breathes a sigh of relief and starts to look for her clothes.

It isn’t quite a failsafe procedure, but Rose had learned sometime in her sophomore year that when she was having trouble with her homework the best way to break the mind block was sex. Masturbation didn’t quite cut it anymore. And college gave her a lot of ample opportunities to try out new people without having to worry about running into exes – she didn’t date anyone here, didn’t have a reason to do so, other than the potential boost that having a consistent sexual partner might bring, but she liked to prey on a new person each time. It kept her from getting bored.

Luisa, of course, was an easy enough mark. It hadn’t been hard to notice her suddenly being around a lot more than she had been before, even though they had no classes together – basically going from _never_ around to _always_ around – and that, of course, was prompted by asking to use her pencil. Rose likes to play the long set up. Luisa isn’t the only one she’s asked about pencils, and she won’t be the last, as far as Rose is concerned.

Already, Rose knows how the next problem goes – the one she’d been stuck on, the numbers and equations lining just up. She doesn’t need to sleep now. She’ll crash tomorrow, once it’s done, once she’s made sure _everything_ is done. She brushes a hand through her frazzled red hair and allows herself a few minutes to look around Luisa’s dorm room.

Her fingers run along the edge of a wooden photo frame. Inside, it looks like a very, very young Luisa with her smiling father and mother. In the next picture, it’s Luisa and her father and a little boy – a younger brother, maybe – and they all seem really solemn. Luisa isn’t even looking at the camera, she’s looking at her brother, and her father’s hand is clenched on his shoulder as though to hold him in place. Kids. They like to run around. She knows that full well. She’d been that kind of child, once.

The frame next to it is empty.

Rose slowly zips up her dress while she stares at it. Who keeps an empty picture frame? _She_ doesn’t. Of course, she doesn’t. She doesn’t have any pictures at all. But _normal_ people don’t keep empty picture frames. Not that she would know much about that because she’s refused to have a roommate and made enough to get a shabby little off campus apartment within a few blocks of campus so that she doesn’t have to worry about a potential roommate situation – but she knows normal people and how normal people act and they don’t have empty picture frames. They have picture frames with pictures in them. Those pictures might not always be theirs. It might even be the picture that came with the frame – which is also weird but slightly more acceptable – but an entirely empty frame with no picture at all?

Curious.

Rose takes the frame and opens the back of it, expecting there to be something inside, but there’s not. She presses her lips together and puts the frame back. She thinks better of it. She second guesses herself. Then, after slipping her heels back on, she takes one of the pens scattered about Luisa’s desk – or what the dorm rooms _call_ a desk but is really just an excuse to not get a better one – and pops the frame back open, writes a little note with nothing but her cell number on it, and then puts the frame back where it was.

Her number is hidden beneath the cardboard backing. You can’t even tell it’s there without opening up the frame. Luisa will likely never see it at all.

Well. She’d given her good conversation, after all. That should count for something.

Hopefully she didn’t turn out to be one of those weird, clingy girls who thinks that just because they slept together and had a nice conversation she wants to spend more time with her.

She _does_ want to spend more time with her – Rose is surprised to find that that’s true – but not like that. Not in public. Not where everyone can see them. That isn’t her style. And she certainly doesn’t want a _girlfriend_. There are too many rules to relationships, and she doesn’t want to navigate those waters with someone who was intended to be a one-night-stand. Even if she _was_ a good conversationalist. And a good kisser.

Maybe she’ll let Luisa buy _her_ a drink next time.

If there is a next time.

If she ever decides to put a picture in the frame and finds the number.

Yeah, well, that’ll never happen. The picture frame’s blank for a reason. It’s not like Rose is holding out hope. She doesn’t like leaving her number anyway.

She thinks better of it, again, once she’s left Luisa’s dorm room, but by then it’s too late. Its door has closed and she’s locked out and no matter what she thinks, she won’t be able to get back in unless she pounds on the door and wakes Luisa up, which would defeat the whole purpose because she doesn’t want Luisa to know she’s gone until after she’s _long_ gone.

Rose brushes a hand through her hair again and takes a deep breath.

She’ll never find it.

She’s not sure if that makes her feel better or not.


	7. bidding war pt. 1

“It’s for _charity_. Something you don’t know anything about.”

Petra pushes one hand under the curl of her short hair as though putting it into place, and Rose has to work to keep her cool. It’s a pot shot – she knows that – and she’s not going to let it get under her skin. Or, well, she _is_ , but she’s also going to turn it right back around.

Because if _anybody_ can be petty, it’s Rose Alver.

(She’d taken Luisa’s name when they got married. It only seemed right. She’d never really been a Solano, and her own name had been discarded long ago. She’d wanted nothing more than to be an Alver. She’d finally felt like she belonged.)

“I seem to remember a charity ten years ago when you and I went head to head—”

Petra blinks into the mirror. “We both agreed that was unfair. Emilio had more money than Rafael did. There was no way we could win.”

“You can tell yourself that,” Rose says, fiddling with the make-up in her purse. She doesn’t need to put any more on, doesn’t need to touch anything up. She’s beautiful just the way she is. Far more than the blonde to her right. An auction didn’t change that. “But you and I both know that I would _still_ win.”

One of Petra’s brows raises, and she turns to Rose, one arm crossed about her waist. “Why don’t you put your body where your mouth is?”

Rose’s eyes light up. “Luisa will be _so_ pleased with you, finally up for that _foursome_ —”

“ _No._ ” Petra rolls her eyes. “Auction yourself off, too. I know you don’t care about charity the way Jane and I do—”

Now it’s Rose’s turn to roll her eyes. “Petra, please, you don’t care about charity. You’re just doing it because Jane asked her to and she has you _whipped_.”

Petra gives Rose a onceover. “No more whipped than Luisa has you.”

“Touché.”

“Anyway, it’ll be a final nail in the coffin.” Petra turns to finish with her make-up and then looks back at Rose. “But Luisa can’t bid.”

“Fine.” Rose nods once. “Jane can’t either.”

Petra’s eyes narrow. “Jane doesn’t have near the money Luisa does.”

“ _Did_ ,” Rose corrects, “and after all the boasting she’s done about that hundred thousand dollar advance, I’d say she has enough to bring her a-game. Besides,” she continues, “you know they’ll outbid anyone else, and the game isn’t about your girlfriend and my wife trying to outbid each other. That’s how we ended up with the Solano fiasco of 2011.”

“Don’t remind me.” Petra sighs, despite the fact that she was the one who brought it up in the first place. There was a _slight_ difference in the fiasco bit – the auction had gone on just fine, but the fight between Emilio and Rafael afterwards had been…not pleasant to see, and Luisa saying _she_ would have bid more on Rose if there hadn’t been any other offers – _in full hearing of everyone in the family_ – had _not_ helped matters, no matter how much she said she _also_ would have bid more on Petra. “Fine. They don’t bid on us. Got it.”

Rose smiled. “Good. It’s a fair game, then.”

The sound of Petra’s compact mirror slapping shut echoes in the bathroom. “You might think that you’ll win because you have the whole _crime lord prisoner_ schtick going on, but most of the men are just going to be scared of you. What they really want is a woman like me. Blonde. Beautiful. And with enough of a brain to keep them interested.”

“Petra, I don’t care what the _men_ bid on me.” Rose smiles and brushes a hand through her bright red waves. “They aren’t my target audience. Not anymore. But we’ll see what I can do.” Her eyes meet Petra’s briefly. “And what’s the prize for winning?”

“Who said you were going to win?”

“I did.” Rose’s voice is firm, but not in the antagonistic way she’d used when she’d run her crime ring. She tries not to use that voice anymore. The only time it gets out is when Luisa asks for it…or when some snot-nosed kid cuts her off on the freeway. Or when she needs to get a customer to shut up and do the smart thing for once and _listen to her_. So not very often at all. “But I’m sure _you_ have something you’d like if you won. Something more than the right to _say_ you won.” Her lips press together, and one hand rests on her hip. “And don’t make it something boring like money.”

Petra sighed and shook her head. “I don’t need your money.”

“And I don’t need yours.”

 _If we’d wanted to stay in the hotel business_ , Rose thinks, _we could have kept Luisa’s shares. But we didn’t want that. And it was an easy enough trade for paying my way out of jail._ Things Jane hadn’t liked to learn 101 – Petra remembering that she and Rose were friends once – and slightly more than friends, but not in the way Rose had been with Luisa – and offering to _help_ instead of _get in the way_.

Also screwing Rafael out of the hotel he’d been dragging through the mud was just an additional bonus.

“So what _do_ you want?” Petra asks, watching Rose carefully.

Rose shrugs. “I want that foursome Luisa keeps asking about.”

Petra blinks, and then her jaw tightens. “No.”

“It shouldn’t be _that_ big of a deal, Petra. You’re so sure you’ll win – you shouldn’t be worried about that happening if you lose.” Rose grins. “C’mon. We’re very, very nice people.”

Petra’s eyes narrow. “Fine. But if _I_ win, Luisa has to stop bringing it up. It makes Jane very uncomfortable.”

“But not you.”

Petra’s eyes meet and hold Rose’s own. “Of course, not me. Luisa’s interest means you’re clearly not taking care of her. Jane’s disinterest means I’m doing my job.”

Rose’s jaw tightens. “I’ll see you on the bidding floor.”

Petra smiles. “It’s a date.”


	8. university prof/prof one-shot

“Luisa! Luisa!”

Two voices call her name – sometimes one of them switches to “Professor Alver!” as though there’s any real question _which_ Luisa she is calling – and Luisa stops just outside her Monday morning classroom, brushing one hand through her wavy brown hair and taking a deep breath. She knows the girls when they arrive, out of breath, from around the corridor, where they must have sprinted up the stairs – one of them is so white Luisa was concerned, when they first met, that she was an albino, and although her concerns were laid to rest, the girl in question, named Anne, had bleached her hair a startling white to try and capitalize on her confusion; the other is as dark as the other is not, with a deep purple undertone and bright brown eyes, and it was she, named Queenie, who had first decided that between the two of them they should have chess nicknames that were never quite decided on – in her mind, Luisa sometimes refers to them as the Dominoes, but she’ll never tell _them_ that.

“Hey, girls. What’s up?”

Queenie speaks first, after a big _huff_ of breath. “We just finished Jane Gloriana Villanueva’s latest book and we realized—”

“— _you’re Luana, aren’t you?_ ” Anne finishes the sentence in what is almost a whisper, her grey eyes wild.

Luisa flinches at the name. She’d already decided to be completely honest if any of her students asked her about it, and she’s not going to change her mind about that now. “Yes,” she says, her voice hushed, and her gaze glances around to see if anyone else has overheard them. No one seems to be listening. _Phew._ She doesn’t want a gang of Jane’s readers following her around everywhere, trying to get more information on Jane’s latest book or on Jane herself when all of that information is easily searchable online.

 _She_ is easily searchable online. She’s not surprised that these two figured it out.

“Would you walk with me?” Luisa asks, not wanting to force them to follow her, not wanting to _ignore them outright_ either, but not feeling comfortable continuing the conversation in this small, albeit mostly public, space. They both nod eagerly, and she gestures with one hand, starting down the stairs – which, admittedly, is not fair for the girls who had just come pounding up them but, considering, Luisa doesn’t much care. She’s never really wanted to talk about her life before she became a college professor, and she’s not particularly comfortable with the way Jane has taken creative liberties with their lives – with _her_ life.

… _their_ lives.

“I’m sure you two have a lot of questions—”

“We do!” Anne interrupts, which doesn’t surprise Luisa in the slightest. Anne has always been the one so overeager that she hasn’t been able to keep from speaking out and interrupting others, even in class, where she’s a little more conscientious than she is outside of it. Luisa doesn’t mind this at all; she’s always been much the same way. It makes her feel a little bit like she’s teaching a younger version of herself.

“But I want you to _promise me_ that you won’t tell anyone else.” Luisa turns to Anne and Queenie. The latter gives one firm nod, her jaw tough and firm, but Anne seems to quaver. “It’s okay if it’s an accident, Anne,” she continues, “but I don’t want to spill my personal life to everyone on campus. I came here to get away from all of that – reporters, the hotel, the police – _all of it_.”

“So she _was_ a crime lord!”

“Your girlfriend. Before you came here,” Queenie elaborates, as though they could be talking about anyone else.

Luisa takes a deep breath. She keeps the truth of Rose close to her chest. In part, this is because Jane has made the greatest deviations in their story because there’s only so much Luisa could tell and only so much Jane knew when she started writing – and changing things so abruptly in later books would have felt weird to their readers; the only way she could have gotten by with it would be to write an entire book just for them, and Jane doesn’t want to do that no matter how much fans want one (and, to be honest, Luisa doesn’t want her to write it either) – but, even more importantly, Luisa doesn’t feel like it’s entirely _her_ story to tell. It’s just as much Rose’s story, and she doesn’t think—

Theirs may be the greatest story ever told, but—

Rose wouldn’t stand to be made fun of. She couldn’t stand to see _Rose_ made fun of.

She’s so tired, sometimes.

Besides, Luisa coming out publicly and pointing out every single place where Jane had changed things doesn’t help anyone. She hasn’t signed anything yet in terms of nondisclosure, but while Jane capitalizes off of their family trauma, there’s not anything Luisa can say to set the story straight without driving a nail in the coffin of her tentative relationship with their family. There’d be lawsuits. She doesn’t want that.

She’s quiet a bit too long, and Queenie asks, her voice soft, “Sorry. We know she’s dead. We just read that bit, where Luana pushes Rowena off the roof and she dies and burns and everything.”

Anne takes one of Luisa’s hands and gives it a gentle squeeze. “We’re sorry for your loss,” she says, and then just as suddenly drops Luisa’s hand because that’s a little too forward to be with their professor, even if she thinks it’s necessary.

“We understand if you don’t want to talk about her.”

Luisa smiles and nods. “Thank you, girls.” She wants to ask if they found Rose’s name in all of their research, but she doesn’t. If they don’t mention it, she won’t elaborate. “So how did you figure it out?” she asks as they leave the building and walk out onto the edge of campus. It’s spring, and the dogwood trees are blooming, and the air reeks of it. She wiggles her nose, but that doesn’t make the stench go away. Once, she might have thought that no amount of beauty was worth that smell, but now....

No, she still thinks that. Rose notwithstanding.

“We did some research,” Queenie answers. “We were curious.”

“We thought, with Rowena dead, we’d send some message or something. To let Luana – to let _you_ know – that we were sorry.”

Luisa stops, and her eyes widen. She hopes Jane has thought this through. She doesn’t _want_ a million fans sending apologies and sad messages to her about Rose’s – about _Rowena’s_ death. It’s been a long time since then. She’s moved on. She’s _had_ to move on. She doesn’t want all of that bringing up old feelings and old pain and driving her from the little life she’d carved out here for herself.

Of course, she’s been kept out of whatever’s happened with Jane so far, and that’s been nice. It was worse, once. That was part of why she’d left. She couldn’t _deal_ with it.

“We actually thought,” and here Anne brightened, her cheeks growing a bright rosy color, “that we could find you a girlfriend. _If_ it was you, and it is, and we know someone who’s interested.”

Queenie sighs. “I told her not to get involved, but she doesn’t listen to me.”

“I listen!” Anne says, giving Queenie a little shove. “But it’s not _my_ fault that Professor Ruvelle is an avid reader of Jane’s books and it’s not _my_ fault that we’ve dissected them in her classes and it’s certainly not _my_ fault that she has a hard-on for Luana that is _so_ evident it’s literally painful to watch its—”

Queenie holds up her hands, and it takes a second before its warning gets through to Anne, who immediately blanches. “I’m sorry, Luisa. That’s not proper wording. I’m—”

“No, this Professor Ruvelle has a hard-on for Luana. Got it.” Luisa grins at them. “And you want me to meet her.”

“Yes!” Anne is bright and excited, and Queenie…is neither, but Luisa knows that excitement is just bubbling beneath the surface, too. “I can’t believe you _haven’t_. It was so easy to find out who you were! She probably knows but didn’t want to be intrusive.”

“ _We_ shouldn’t have been intrusive,” Queenie says, finally shoving Anne back.

“Well, I _guess_ ,” Luisa says, smiling a fond little smile, “I should go meet her, then.” She looks over to Anne and Queenie. “But you two can’t come with me. And you can’t say _anything at all_. But if anyone asks,” she continues, tapping the side of her nose, “I’ll tell them you two got tired of hearing Professor Ruvelle wax poetic about a fictional character she’ll never meet and decided to set her up with the only other eligible lesbian professor on campus.”

Anne grins and nods rapidly, but Queenie looks ashamed. “You don’t have to say that. We don’t want to be known for that.” She turns to Anne and shakes her head. “We _really_ don’t want to be known for that.”

“Then I won’t mention your names. Sound good?”

“Sounds _wonderful_!”

Queenie takes Anne’s hand and pulls her away. “Look, we, uh, we have to go, but, uh, we’ll come talk to you after class tomorrow.” She gives Anne a look, and Anne just looks confused. “We’ve got some, uh, homework we have to do. Yeah. For class! We haven’t done your homework yet. We were just so enthralled with Jane’s book that we haven’t gotten to it yet and we have to do it now so we’re going to go. Now.”

“Of course.”

Luisa watches as Queenie drags Anne away from her. There’s that disconnect – she appreciates what the girls think they’re doing but also there are lines that maybe shouldn’t be crossed where your professor is concerned, and while Anne doesn’t really always understand those lines (the same way Luisa herself likely wouldn’t have, when she was her age), Queenie’s starting to understand that maybe, just maybe, they were in over their head.

It doesn’t matter. They’d already been _extremely_ helpful.

* * *

Luisa drops her briefcase just inside the door and pulls her mother’s forest green sweater off the coat rack and wraps it around herself. She looks out the kitchen window to the rose bush just outside, near enough to the ivy that grows up the outside of their house. Then she takes a deep breath and makes her way into the living room.

“ _Professor Ruvelle_ ,” she says, and there she is, the love of her life, just the way Jane has never described her, all frizzy unkempt hair and bright blue eyes and those glasses perched on the edge of her nose as she reads one of her books, one long finger holding the next page ready so that she can turn it as soon as she finishes it, “you’ll never _believe_ what happened today.”

“And what would that be, Professor Alver?” Rose asks, not even looking up from her book.

Luisa sits on the couch next to her and rests her head on her cheek. “Two more of my students figured out I’m Luana, and you’ll _never guess_ what they suggested.”

Rose pauses and finally looks from her book to meet Luisa’s eyes. “Tell me.”

Luisa wants to drag it out, but she doesn’t. Instead, she presses a kiss to Rose’s cheek. “They told me that _Professor Ruvelle_ apparently has a _hard-on_ for Luana and that I should shack up with her.” She grinned. “In so many words.”

“ _Finally._ ” Rose let out a long breath and placed the book over to one side. “I could only drop so many hints around so many avid readers of Jane’s _horrid_ books before one of them picked up on it and tried to set us up.” She brushes a hand through Luisa’s dark hair. “It finally paid off.”

“I’m surprised none of them have figured out that we live together yet,” Luisa says. She snuggles a little closer to Rose. “They told me how sad they were at Rowena’s death. They just read it.”

“Took Jane long enough to write it,” Rose murmurs.

“I didn’t mean to push you.”

“You didn’t push me. And I didn’t die.” Rose kisses Luisa’s forehead. “And now we’re here, and we’re safe, and thanks to your intrusive students, we can be the happily married couple on campus.”

Luisa grins. “We can be the professors that are too romantic and too sweet and too—”

Rose stops her with a kiss. “We can be a lot of things, Lu. I’m just sorry it took so long.”


	9. funerary anniversary

They’d barely known each other two weeks, but Rose had already guessed where Luisa kept her spare key – not under the welcome mat, as so many others might, and not under the plant pot itself, but buried in the dirt just inside of the pot, far enough away from the plant base that it would not rust and the roots would not be harmed if someone needed to dig it out of the earth. Rose brushed the dirt from her hands as she laid the key on the nearby counter, locking the door behind her.

Luisa’s apartment was quiet – not as she expected it to be. Luisa was loud and lively, so she’d imagined her apartment would be as well, especially when the young woman was here somewhere. _Young woman_ , as though Luisa were younger than her, when really it was the other way around – _Rose_ was younger than _her_ , the woman destined to be her new stepdaughter. **Men**.

Her car was parked out front. Luisa was here somewhere. But all of the lights were out, and it was silent.

Rose moved through the front room, through the living room, away from the kitchen to back hallway, to the bedroom and what she expected would be a connected bathroom to create something of a master suite in an apartment that only had one bedroom and one bath to begin with.

The curtains were all shut. The light was out. It took time for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, and when she had, Rose could see Luisa curled up on her bed, one pillow crammed over her head, all on one side in a fetal position. That didn’t bode well.

Rose wasn’t sure what she had expected. She’d come here for answers – not about Luisa, but about _Emilio_ , who had been suddenly distant today, as though she didn’t exist at all. He hadn’t been _cold_ , per say, just avoiding her. Of course, he didn’t tell her everything. Not yet. Probably not ever, considering he would want to keep his side art thief business close to his chest, especially given that she was a _lawyer_ , but he didn’t have to tell her that for her to know about it.

There was a bottle of vodka on the side table.

“Whoever you are,” Luisa said, her voice feeble and shaking, “go away. I can’t deal with you today.”

“Luisa,” Rose said, and that was all she needed to say.

Luisa slowly moved the pillow from her head and looked up. Her eyes were red, her face was splotchy, and she looked so tired that Rose could feel her heart ache, which was weird because her heart _didn’t ache_. “Rose?” she asked, and she blinked a few times as if she wasn’t believing what she was seeing. “Is that really you?” Her eyes narrowed. “How did you get in here?” Then her eyes widened in shock. “Do you know how to pick locks, too?”

“Yes,” Rose answered immediately – _truthfully_ , which was the real shock – and then shook her head. “I didn’t pick your lock. I found your spare key.” She waggled her right hand, showing that her hand was still dirty. She brushed her hand against her skirt again, trying to get the rest of the dirt off, with little avail. “Your father has been distant today, and I was wondering if you knew what was bothering him.”

Luisa’s face fell. “Of course, you came to ask me.”

“Luisa, you haven’t been drinking, have you?”

“No.” Luisa’s gaze moved to the bottle of vodka on her bedside table. “I haven’t opened it. You can check.”

Rose took that as an excuse to move forward from the bedroom door, and as she did so, Luisa moved over on her bed just enough for Rose to sit down next to her. The bottle was, as Luisa said, unopened. “You shouldn’t have this,” Rose said, her fingers finding Luisa’s.

Luisa inched her hand away. “It shouldn’t matter to you what I have and what I don’t have.”

“Luisa, what’s wrong?” Rose asked, and she turned to face her. This close, she could tell that Luisa’s eyes were swollen, and she could see the tear tracks on her cheeks. She reached out and brushed her thumb across Luisa’s cheek, only for the other woman to flinch away from her touch. “You’re crying.”

“He didn’t tell you.” Luisa shook her head. “Of course, he didn’t tell you. He never tells anyone.” She buried her face into the pillow again so that her words were muffled when she said, quiet, “Today’s the day my mom....” Her head popped up. “You know he doesn’t love you, right? That he never loves any of you?”

Rose didn’t say anything. She wasn’t interested in whether Emilio loved her or not. That didn’t matter to her at all. But it should have mattered to the woman she was pretending to be. She sighed. “Don’t be petty, Luisa.” She wanted to say _it doesn’t look good on you_ , but that would be a lie. It looked beautiful on her.

“ _My father_ ,” Luisa continued, but her voice had grown very soft, “has only ever loved two women in his entire life. One of them left him for fuck knows what reason, and the other jumped off a bridge and her body wasn’t found for _days_.” She bit her lower lip. “If he doesn’t feel comfortable telling you all this, I don’t know how your relationship is going to last.”

“Does saying all of that make you feel better?”

“No.” Luisa’s gaze landed on the bottle of vodka. She sighed and buried her head in her pillows again. “Nothing makes me feel better today except for _that_. And I can’t _have_ that. So no.”

Rose’s jaw tightened. “I should pour it down the drain.”

Luisa’s head snapped back up. “ _Don’t you dare_ ,” she hissed. “I’m not drinking it, _you’re_ not drinking it, but you’re not going to waste a bottle of vodka that way. Not in my apartment. You can leave first.” She slowly moved into a sitting position, her eyes narrowing. “Why are you still _here_ , anyway? You got your answer. Why don’t you just go?”

She could ask herself the same question. Truth be told, Rose didn’t want to be anywhere else. Trying to be with Emilio right now was agony, not to mention pushing him into letting her in and to quit avoiding her would put a damper on their relationship. He would be uncomfortable with her, and she couldn’t afford to make him uncomfortable with her. Besides, she actually wanted to be here. Even with Luisa snapping at her.

“I’m allowed,” Rose started, hesitant, her fingers tapping on Luisa’s sheets, her gaze focused on her fingers, “to love more than one person at the same time.” She pressed her lips together and glanced up enough to try and meet Luisa’s eyes, which seemed even more puffed and red now that they’d widened. “Maybe I just wanted to be a good stepmother.”

“You aren’t my stepmother yet.” Luisa crumpled onto her mattress again and moved over just enough for Rose to curl up beside her, if she wanted. “It was my birthday,” she said finally, only to continue rapid fire and correct herself, “Mom didn’t die on my birthday; that’s not what I meant. My birthday was a few days before, but we’d checked Mom out for my birthday so we could go to the aquarium and we were driving back and it was a long line on the freeway and Mom said she didn’t want to go back and she got out of the car and she jumped and Dad just stood there.” She took a deep breath and fresh tears began to pool in her eyes. “He just _stood there_.”

Rose slipped her shoes off, followed by the far too tight skirt that was not made for this sort of movement, and slowly curled up in bed next to Luisa. She pulled the blankets up around them. “It’s not your fault,” she said as she wrapped her arms around Luisa’s waist and pulled her close to her, resting her chin on her shoulder.

Luisa turned just enough to face her. “I know it’s not my fault. It’s _not_ my fault. What did I say to make you think it was my fault? If anything, it was Dad’s fault. _He’s_ the one who stood there and didn’t do anything about it. _He’s_ the one who watched her jump. _He’s_ the one who checked her out of the hospital.”

“It was your birthday and you wanted your mother there. Any child would have wanted that.”

“Exactly.” Luisa turned to face away from her again, and her voice was so soft that it had lost its normal enthusiasm. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Of course, you didn’t.”

Luisa nodded just so. “I wonder…if she hadn’t gotten out, would she have gotten better? Would she still be here? Would she be proud of me?” Before Rose could say anything, she shook her head. “But then Rafael wouldn’t be alive and I wouldn’t have my baby brother and I can’t imagine what life would have been like if she’d still been alive. I wouldn’t have had so many stepmothers. You wouldn’t be in love with him. Or maybe you still would be, but he wouldn’t be trying to marry you.”

“You might not have been at the bar,” Rose continued. “ _I_ might not have been at the bar.” She pressed a kiss to Luisa’s neck. “I _shouldn’t_ have been at the bar.”

Luisa turned to face her again. “But you were. And he is. And you are.”

“And your mother would have been proud of you,” Rose whispered, meeting Luisa’s eyes. “Any mother would be.”

“Like you?” Luisa asked, and she smirked, shaking her head. “Don’t answer that.”

“ _I’m_ proud of you.” They hadn’t known each other more than two weeks, and Rose could state that as a fact. “You made it through rehab. _Again._ Because you knew you needed help and you went and got help.” She kissed Luisa’s cheek. “You’re a medical doctor—”

“Because I thought it would make Dad proud of me.”

“ _And he is._ ” Rose smiled. “You should hear him talk about you sometime. He is _so_ proud of you. More than he is of your brother.”

“He should be proud of Raf, too.” Luisa sighed and crumpled against Rose just the slightest bit. “I’m a fuck up.”

“ _Everyone_ is a fuck up.” Rose tightened her arms around Luisa’s waist. “But you know what?”

Luisa’s eyes narrowed, and she turned fully around in Rose’s arms so she could face her. “What?”

Rose lifted her chin on one fingertip. “You aren’t drinking.”

Luisa blinked. She didn’t say anything at first, and that was the most wondrous thing, and then she nodded. “I’m not drinking.”

“At least you’re not drinking.”

“At least I’m not drinking,” Luisa repeated. She nodded once, as though memorizing it, and then curled up against Rose, resting her head on her chest. “You’ll stay here with me for a little while, and then you’ll run back to him, won’t you?”

Rose closed her eyes and then nodded. “I’m in love with him, Luisa, and I can’t marry you.” She hadn’t explained that yet, hadn’t needed to, had _told_ Luisa it was a one-time thing and then prepared a strategy in case Luisa ever told her father. It wasn’t hard. She’d been trained to make these sorts of strategies. (She’d never thought she wouldn’t want them.) “But I can stay with you for now.”

“Ok.” Luisa felt small against her. “Just don’t let me go.”

“I won’t.”


	10. jane your judginess is showing

“I don’t see why you haven’t visited them.” JR leaned back against Jane’s couch and picked at something beneath one of her fingernails. “Lu is his _sister_ for crying out loud. And it’s not like he has any other family.”

“He has _us_ ,” Jane replied, tucking one leg neatly beneath the other the way she’d been advised to do on her book tours. “Lu’s not the greatest person, and Rose…she’s _horrible_ , Jane. You’ve never met her. You wouldn’t know.”

JR gives Petra a look and then turns back to Jane. “I know she kidnapped Mateo once ten years ago—”

“Eight,” Jane corrected.

“ _Eight_. And I know she killed Rafael’s father, but any time he talks about Emilio, he makes it sound like they hated each other.” JR flicked whatever she’d found the way one might flick a bug away from them.

“They didn’t _hate_ each other,” Jane corrected, again. “It was complicated.”

Petra rolled her eyes. “They certainly didn’t _like_ each other. You weren’t there, Jane. You really don’t know. Emilio might have loved Raf, but he certainly didn’t like him. He at least _liked_ Luisa.”

“And she seems to have gotten over Rose killing her father just fine.” JR turned to Petra, who covered her hand with one of her own. “Luisa didn’t have the same complications with him, right?”

“Right.”

Jane shook her head. “Luisa has _other_ reasons to get over Rose killing her dad. Obviously. And Rose didn’t kidnap her son—”

“No,” JR interrupted, “she kidnapped _her_. As did Rafael’s mother.”

“ _Who Rose also killed—_ ”

“Yeah, but it’s not like Rafael liked her either. And _she_ was a crime lord and _she_ killed a lot of people and probably would have been just fine with kidnapping Mateo, too, so the fact that you’re more upset about _her_ death than you are about—”

“She didn’t _actually_ kidnap Mateo.” Jane shook her head. “You don’t _know_ , Jane. I’ve been around Rose. She’s horrible.”

Petra sighed and shook her head. “You have been around Rose exactly _twice_ , talked to her exactly _once_ , and when you did, she stepped in and saved you from a shitty customer. You don’t know her either, Jane.”

“I know enough to know that I don’t want to associate with someone like her.” Jane uncrossed her legs and crossed them again, rubbing her temples with one hand. “She’s _evil_.”

“Evil people can be rehabilitated,” JR said, and she patted Petra’s hand once.

Jane shook her head. “Not this one. You’re wrong. Someone like her is evil and is always going to _be_ evil.”

JR looked over at Petra, who shook her head once in an attempt to keep her from pushing the conversation, but she had no intent to listen to her. Not right now. “Jane, have you ever had a dog?”

Jane’s eyes narrowed. “Of course not. We didn’t have the money for a dog. I always wanted one and Mom would never let me have one. She said we wouldn’t be able to train it properly, and it would bite Abuela. I told her I would take care of it, and she never listened to me. So _no_ , Jane, I did _not_ have a dog.”

JR nodded. “We had a dog once. Just one. Bartholomew, but we always called him Bart or Barty. He was a Rottweiler, and when we first met him, he was the meanest, most vicious animal you had ever seen. But my father fell in love with him immediately. My mom, like yours, said _absolutely not_ , and we thought that was that. But Dad adopted him anyway. He kept him in a kennel away from us, but he spent days with Barty, playing with him, loving on him. At first, this didn’t do any good. Barty hated everyone and everything and was just as likely to bark at or try to bite my dad as to let him pet him.”

“Excuse me,” Jane interrupted, “but what does this have to do with Rose?”

“We didn’t find until later,” JR continued as though Jane hadn’t said anything at all, “that Dad had first seen Barty while he was on a walk and had learned that Barty’s previous owner hadn’t treated him very well. Dad had _wanted_ us to see him, had _wanted_ us to know how much he loved him, how much he wanted him, even if he seemed mean. Even if he could _be_ mean.” JR sighed and leaned back. “Now, eventually, Barty fell in love with Dad. He learned to trust him, to know that Dad cared about him. He didn’t always like _us_ much, but he knew that Dad liked us and so he liked us as much as he could. A little bit at a time. Never as much as he loved Dad, but enough.”

Jane sighed. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

JR looked up and met her eyes. “Think of Rose as a dog. I’m sure you already do, so that can’t be too hard for you.”

Petra snorted. Then she wiped one finger along her nose and leaned back against the couch, crossing one leg over the other. “Sorry.” Her gaze moved to meet JR’s, and she gestured with one hand. “Go on. I’m listening.”

“But, Jane, Rose might be a _bitch_ , but she’s not a dog. Dogs can be trained. Rose can’t. _People_ can’t.” Jane met JR’s eyes and stared at her. “You’re not going to change my mind.”

“Look, Jane, every single one of us in this family is a little bit fucked up. I tried to get Petra thrown in jail for murdering her sister.”

Jane’s face went blank. “Petra _did_ murder her sister.”

“ _And gaslit me the entire time we were together until I realized that was true._ ” JR raised her eyebrows and gently squeezed Petra’s hand. “Not to mention that she lied to Rafael about who she was throughout their entire marriage.”

“She was being blackmailed,” Jane said, her voice growing tight. “ _You_ were being blackmailed, too.”

Petra glanced up and sighed. “I was _not_ being blackmailed into gaslighting JR, and I was _definitely_ not being blackmailed into killing Anezka.”

“But Anezka was threatening the girls. You _had_ to do _something_!”

Petra shrugged. “I didn’t have to push her off the balcony.” Her eyes narrowed quickly. “A lot of people we know keep getting pushed off of very tall things. Maybe we should avoid those in the future.”

“Look, it doesn’t matter. You’re not a crime lord.” Jane turned to JR. “ _Neither of you_ are. You might have done some really bad things, but you aren’t bad people. _Rose_ is a bad person.”

Petra took a deep breath. “And how great was Rafael before we got married?” she asked. “I know you looked him up. You know all of the things _he_ was involved in. Or you know what he’ll tell you.” She met Jane’s eyes. “You _also_ saw how he acted after Luisa took his money—”

“Correction: You saw how Rafael reacted after Luisa took _her_ money.” JR turned to Petra, spreading her arms along the back of the couch. “I may not be a lawyer anymore, but I was a very good one, and Rafael could go to _jail_ for not being honest with Luisa. He knew for _at least_ three years, maybe even longer, that Luisa was supposed to be the sole heir of Emilio’s fortune, and he didn’t say anything about it. And from what I’ve heard from _you_ , he drove the Marbella into the ground – anything that it is now, any success it’s had, is because of you – which means he not only _kept_ Luisa’s inheritance, but he _wasted_ it.” She turned back to Jane and tapped a finger towards her. “Which is another point in his column. A lot of points.”

“That’s different,” Jane stammered. “That’s _Raf_. He really did change.”

“And Rose can’t?”

“ _Raf wasn’t a crime lord._ ”

“Oh, and he knew about his father being an art thief and didn’t tell the police,” Petra continued. “I didn’t tell you about that, did I?”

JR’s eyes narrowed. “If I didn’t know Rafael, I would _kind of_ hate him.” She reached over and touched Jane’s hand. “I _don’t_ hate him. But that’s the point. Raf changed. _People_ change. Even former crime lords. I changed. Petra changed. Rose has changed, too.”

“Look,” Jane said, and her teeth gritted together just so. “ _I_ have never done anything like that. I’ve been _very_ good. So it’s not _everyone_ who does stuff like that. Just all of you.”

JR leaned back and turned to Petra. “You’re right. She _is_ judgy.”

“Told you.”

“ _Hey!_ ”

“So it’s a sliding scale,” JR replied.

Jane nodded. “And Rose is at the very, very far end.”

“I don’t know,” JR said, turning back to Petra. “She didn’t seem so bad when we saw her.”

“You _what_?” Jane’s voice was suddenly very soft and very low. She stared at both of them – _glared_ at them. “You _saw_ her?”

“Of course, we saw her, Jane.” Petra didn’t quail under Jane’s glare – neither did JR, who thought that Jane might have had a point if Rose was still… _Rose_. She didn’t move; if anything, Petra returned the glare with an ice cold stare of her own. “The girls deserved to see their aunt.” She blinked. “ _Aunts._ ”

“Lu and Raf aren’t even related.”

“But they grew up together. Just because they aren’t biologically related doesn’t mean they aren’t family. And you’re cutting a part of that family out.” Petra held up a hand before Jane could interrupt her. “Which is your decision. Completely up to you. But I’m not going to keep Anna and Ellie away from Lu. She’s calmed down some. And I never hated Rose. The crime lord thing was a little bit out of the blue, but out of everyone in that family, she felt like the only sane one. That doesn’t go away just because she’s—”

“ _She kidnapped Mateo, and you’re letting her spend time with Anna and Ellie?_ ”

“She’s not _in_ the kidnapping business anymore.” Petra sighed. “Besides, it isn’t like she actually _hurt_ Mateo. He’s just fine. She gave him back when she said she would give him back. He wasn’t even gone a full day.”

“Petra—”

“Look,” JR put up her hands, palms out. “I get that you don’t like this conversation and you don’t intend on agreeing with us. Fine. You’re just keeping yourself, and your family, from the rest of your family.”

Petra nodded once. “Whatever you think she is, and whatever she’s done to you, she’s changed, Jane. She’s not out to kill anybody. She’s settled down. Hate her all you want, but the only person you’re really hurting here is yourself. We’re not going to stop seeing them just because you don’t like them. If you’re ever interested, you can come with us.” She uncrossed her legs and placed her hands in her lap. “Now. I believe we were promised food?”

“Yeah,” JR said. “I’m getting hungry.” She leaned her head back. “And _something_ smells _good_.”

“Oh, yeah, right.” Jane got up. “It should be done now. I’ll just—” She left the room.

Petra turned to JR. “Do you _actually_ think that helped?”

JR shrugged. “No. I don’t. Your Jane doesn’t seem like the sort of person to listen to anyone else’s opinions but her own, and she’s written so much of her story one way that she can’t wrap her head around possibly being wrong.”

Petra nodded and then met JR’s eyes. “I would feel the same way if she’d kidnapped the twins.”

“No, you wouldn’t.” JR held Petra’s gaze. “You would have found her and killed her if she ever so much as threatened the twins. Probably thrown _her_ off a balcony, too. I think you’ve proven yourself _very_ capable of taking care of the twins.”

“Mmmm, that’s _right_.” Petra smiled, smug. “I just didn’t want to be the one to say it.” She nodded at JR. “And you would have helped me get off, right?”

JR laughed. “Babe, I’ll help you get off _any_ time.”

Petra’s eyes widened, and she flushed a bright scarlet. But before they could continue that line of thought, Jane was back and gesturing them to the kitchen. The food was done, and it was time to eat. They could worry about all of the others some time later, if it ever came up again.

It probably wouldn’t. They’d said their piece already, and Jane wouldn’t be the kind of person to bring it up. That’s just how it was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i plan to have this carry on into a second part (at least) and i'm /hoping/ that'll be the next chapter.


	11. jane visits roisa pt. 1

It took months before Jane finally did something about what Petra and JR had said.

Now, some people might have heard everything they said and stuck to their guns and not let it get into their head at all, but Jane wasn’t built that way. She _wanted_ to stick to her guns. She didn’t _want_ to go see Rose. She would probably be okay with seeing Luisa if she didn’t have to worry about the other half of that duo, but since Rose was there, she didn’t really want to visit Luisa either. The problem was that Jane was the sort of person who _overthought_ things. And as much as she could try to ignore everything that her friends – and JR, as much as they didn’t really get along, was still a friend because _Petra_ was a friend – had said, their words crept under her skin. They sat there, they made her skin itch, and every now and again she would scratch and pick at them and they would get stirred up again.

She tried to bring it up with Rafael, but that didn’t do any good. He was not of the _overthinking_ type. He was the bullheaded _stick to their guns_ type, which was different than the normal _stick to their guns_ type, who might be willing to listen to opposing reasoning and change what their guns were stuck to, in that no matter the opposition he was going to stick with his decision, even if he was wrong. In a moment like this, that was almost nice, but it really turned into Rafael saying, “Look, Jane, if you don’t want to see them, don’t see them. I don’t. And she was _my_ sister. But you have to know when to let go,” eventually followed by, “Jane, I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I don’t want you to go see them,” followed eventually by, “ _Don’t go see them_ ,” and as soon as it became an order, Jane knew she had to go.

Jane was even worse about sticking to her guns when she was strictly told _not_ to do something. Especially when she was concerned she might be _wrong_.

She wasn’t wrong. Not about Rose. She wasn’t wrong.

This was a waste of time.

Which was what she told herself as she stood on their doorstep with Mateo at her side.

…she hadn’t really wanted to bring Mateo, either, but she had. She didn’t want him around Rose, and she couldn’t tell herself that these were the sort of people who wouldn’t hurt children because Rose _would_. She knew Rose would. _But she also was fairly certain that Luisa wouldn’t and would be very upset if Rose tried_ , which made the decision a little easier. And she hadn’t wanted to go alone, and she hadn’t wanted to bring Rafael with her, and she hadn’t wanted her coming to feel like an attack.

Jane took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

Once.

Twice.

“Momma, why aren’t you trying the doorbell?”

_Because she really didn’t want them to answer the door. Because she really didn’t want to deal with them. Because she really didn’t want it to be for her lack of trying that they didn’t see each other._

Jane took another deep breath and rang the doorbell.

At that exact moment, the door opened, and the woman of her dreams – _nightmares, woman of her nightmares_ – stood there, only she didn’t look much of anything the way Jane had imagined her. Well, she did, because she was still the same person, but she wasn’t in the fancy low cut dresses or shirts that she’d seen her in when she worked at the Marbella (when Emilio was still alive) and her hair was _not_ in that meticulous wonderful easy wave she’d had before. Instead, she was in sweatpants – _Rose Solano, the villainous Sin Rostro, in sweatpants!_ – and what looked to be an old t-shirt, her hair was a frizzy mess of spazz, and her face seemed pale, there were dark circles under her eyes, _and she had freckles_. Standing this close, Jane could see them!

Or maybe it was that Rose wasn’t wearing make-up.

On second consideration, her face was really, _really_ red. Much redder than normal. It was the make-up thing. Jane was sure of it.

Rose looked at Jane, and her jaw worked but didn’t quite tighten. “I take it you’re here to see Mia.”

Jane blinked a couple of times. “Who’s Mia?”

“Oh. You haven’t heard.” Rose’s expression softened, and she leaned down to Mateo’s height. “Do you know who I am?”

“You’re Auntie Rose who kidnapped me when I was a baby and killed a lot of people, and you’re married to Auntie Luisa who made me be born,” Mateo said before Jane could stop him.

Rose _grinned_. “That’s right.”

“Um,” Jane started and slowly moved Mateo behind her, “can we come in?”

Rose slowly stood up. She was taller than Jane was – she’d _always_ been taller than Jane was, _most people_ were taller than Jane was – but she didn’t seem as intimidating as she once did. Maybe it was the sweatpants or the bags under her eyes or the fact that she was a real living person who didn’t seem to be holding a knife and Jane knew those kind of sweatpants couldn’t be concealing them. Or a gun. Or anything really dangerous. And her fingernails were all cropped short, so that was a plus.

But there was still something in the way Rose looked at her, some glint of something dangerous. It wasn’t a trick of the light. It _couldn’t_ be. Jane was still right. Rose was still evil.

“Sure,” Rose said, and she pushed the door open, holding it for them. “Come on in.”

Jane walked into the house. Mateo followed her. She wanted to take everything in, but the first thing she could think of before that was, “Where’s Luisa?”

“Oh, she’s—”

“Rose, look! She’s finally latching on!”

_And there was Luisa. Without a shirt on. Or a bra. Completely nude from the waist up. Breasts flying in the breeze._

Jane covered Mateo’s eyes.

“Mama! I can’t see anything!”

“ _That is the point._ ” Jane glared at Luisa – although, really, it wasn’t entirely her fault, she couldn’t have known who was at the door or that there was a child involved (but the doorbell rang and she came! she knew there was _someone_ at the door! _did she feel no shame?_ ) – and then, finally, _finally_ saw the swaddled something cradled against her chest and put two and two together.

_Oh._

No one had told her Luisa was _pregnant_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i plan on more; this is just what i had of it that was done. expect more probably tomorrow!
> 
> ...probably picking up exactly where this left off.


	12. jane visits roisa pt. 2

They stood there for a few minutes, just like that, Jane covering Mateo’s eyes and Luisa standing there, half nude, staring at them without blinking. Maybe it wasn’t a few minutes, maybe it was only a few seconds, but it certainly _felt_ longer, certainly not helped by Mateo struggling against Jane’s hands and trying to see what she still _really did not_ want him to see.

“Are you going to put a shirt on?” Jane asked. “Or get a towel? Or some sort of covering?”

Luisa blinked, finally, and before she could say anything, Rose intervened. “What, do you think it’s inappropriate for Mateo to see a woman—”

“ _Yes_ ,” Jane said through gritted teeth. “Yes, I think it’s _incredibly_ inappropriate.” She waved one hand in Luisa’s direction. “That’s extremely sexual and extremely inappropriate and I don’t want my son—”

“Breast-feeding isn’t sexual,” Luisa said, finally, interrupting her. In fact, Luisa wasn’t even looking at Jane anymore, instead glancing down with extreme love on the child still in her arms. “Breasts aren’t sexual either. This is what they were made for. Just because society has taken and twisted their meaning into something they weren’t intended for—”

“ _So you admit society has—_ ”

“And didn’t _you_ breast feed _Mateo_ , Jane?” Rose interrupted. By now, she’d moved to leaning against the wall, her arms crossed, and she yawned as though bored. “Or bathe him with you? I’m sure you wouldn’t think those are—”

“ _That’s different._ ” Jane glared at her. “He was my child. I wasn’t forcing myself on anyone else or anyone else’s kids—”

“Really,” Rose continued, as though Jane hadn’t said anything at all, “we should be normalizing this sort of thing so that women can feed their infants in public without any sort of social stigma.” She met Jane’s eyes and did not smile. “I’m sure _you_ would want to get rid of social stigma against women. Isn’t that sort of your thing? Defending women?”

“No, I—”

“So you’re _not_ a defender of women and you’re totally fine with this stigma continuing despite the fact that it is nothing more than that and is extremely inconveniencing for—”

“ _Luisa, can you just put a shirt on?_ ” Jane turned her glare back to Luisa, not wanting to deal with Rose’s foolishness anymore. _This_ was why she didn’t want to see her. Or, it wasn’t, because Jane hadn’t really dealt with this side of Rose before, but it certainly reinforced her previous reasons for not wanting to see her. She was a tongue twister. She was evil. She didn’t really _care_ what Jane thought or believed or wanted but just wanted to turn her words against her to win. The worst sort of person, really. Of course a former crime lord would be like that. Of course. Why would she think otherwise?

Luisa looked up from the child in her arms and met Jane’s eyes. “No,” she said, very softly but no less firmly for it. “My daughter is more important to me than what you think is or isn’t appropriate when _you_ are the one who came to _our_ home without telling us beforehand.” Her lips pressed together, and her gaze flicked over to Rose, who gave her a little nod. “If you want,” she continued, “you and I can move to another room and Mateo can stay in here with Rose—”

“Rose kidnapped him. I’m not leaving him here alone with—”

“Then _both of you_ can stay in here with Rose.” Luisa met Rose’s eyes again. “It’s...rude for you to treat me this way, in my own home,” she continued, her words now becoming more hesitant, “but it’s _my_ home – _our_ home – and we live here the best way we know how.” She nodded once, more to herself than to Jane, and then her eyes drifted down to the child in her arms. “Next time, she should call first, shouldn’t she, Mia?” She smiled as though it was the easiest thing in the world – warm and soft and happier than Jane had ever seen Luisa (although, admittedly, Jane hadn’t seen Luisa very often, and when she had, it hadn’t been the happiest of circumstances) – and then looked up, nodding once to Rose, before turning and walking back the way she came.

“She’s been taking lessons on assertiveness from Petra, not from me,” Rose said with another yawn. This one she covered with the back of one hand.

“No, I’m sure if she was taking them from you, I would be dead by now,” Jane snapped.

“I’m sorry, did I actually kill anyone you care about?” Rose moved to the couch and collapsed onto it. “And don’t say Emilio because you never met the man, and if Lu can forgive me, then you have no right—”

“Mama, can I _see_ now?” Mateo had finally stopped clawing at her hands and let out a deep sigh. “I didn’t see anything anyway I don’t know why I can’t—”

Rose laughed, and it wasn’t that high-pitched sort of villainous laugh that Jane expected, but something much more real and much more human and not at all reminiscent of characters in the cartoons Mateo had been watching recently.

Not that it helped. Jane didn’t like being laughed at, and she certainly didn’t like being laughed at by Rose. She stepped back, moving her hands from Mateo’s eyes. He blinked at the sudden light as he grew accustomed to it again. Then he turned back to Rose. “It didn’t work. I could see through her fingers anyway.”

And then there was that _laugh_ again and Rose’s startlingly brilliant and harmful _grin_ and Jane felt mad. Mad at herself for listening to Petra and JR, mad at herself for having come in the first place, mad at herself for placing them in a position where the woman who kidnapped her son and shot her first husband had the power to mock her this way.

“Michael,” she said, finally. “You killed Michael.”

“You’ll find that I didn’t,” Rose said, suddenly serious. She leaned back against the couch and yawned a third time. “If I wanted him dead, I would have…what is the term the kids use? _Headshot._ ” She glanced over to Jane. “I liked Michael. He was fun. I didn’t _mean_ for him to die.”

“He still did,” Jane said, standing and wiping her hands against her jeans.

“He should have had better doctors.” Rose shrugged. “You can’t legally accuse me of murdering Michael. Shooting him, yes. But murder due to health complications that happened months later – even if they _were_ due to the shot – wouldn’t stick. Not in a court of law.”

“ _This isn’t a court of law, Rose._ ” Jane’s teeth gritted together so hard she could feel her jaw ache with the pressure. “You don’t get to talk your way out of this one. You _killed_ —”

“You shot Michael?” Mateo asked, staring blankly at Rose, as though he hadn’t decided whether he was interested or not. “Why?”

Rose stared at him. She pressed her lips together, seeming to consider it. “Your daddy—”

“Michael’s not my dad,” Mateo corrected, his eyes growing a little dark. “Daddy’s my dad.”

“Rafael,” Rose said and leaned forward with a little nod. “Which is why Luisa is your aunt. Because she’s your daddy’s sister. And why _I’m_ your aunt. Because I’m her wife.”

Mateo’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you were my other abuela because you were married to my daddy’s daddy.”

This time, Jane had to bite back a laugh. She stifled it and covered her mouth with one hand, hiding it as Rose’s stunned, unhappy look passed from Jane back to Mateo.

Rose took a deep breath, her jaw working, and then said, very calmly, “I guess I’m both.”

“And you shot Michael because you liked Daddy better.”

Jane’s eyes widened.

Rose looked briefly over to Jane as though to ask _Did you tell him this shit?_ and then glanced back to Mateo. “No, I shot Michael because he figured out who I was under my Halloween mask.” She drummed her fingers along her leg. “It’s a really bad thing, when you’re wearing a mask and say you’re someone else and someone tries to tell you otherwise. So if one of your friends at school tries to say _you’re_ someone else on Halloween—”

“I’m not going to hurt anybody,” Mateo said, his brow furrowing. “Mommy wouldn’t like that.”

“I’m sure she wouldn’t,” Rose said, glancing over to Jane again. Then she shrugged and slumped back against the couch again. “I shot Michael because I didn’t want the police to get me before I could make sure your Aunt Luisa would be okay. She’d had a really bad year—”

“—because you killed her father.”

Rose’s eyes narrowed. “Because her father died, her girlfriend dumped her, she got kidnapped and _no one but Michael would believe her_ , she was fucked over by a journalist pretending to be her friend just so he could get exclusive information to fuck over your family – which he learned he could do from _your_ mother, by the way—”

“ _Rose_ ,” Jane hissed, “that was _not_ my fault and _watch your language_ —”

“Your daddy wanted to pretend she didn’t exist, she thought I’d died and started drinking again and your mommy found out and abandoned her as soon as she could pass her off to someone else, she found out her mother _was_ alive and then was _dead_ , and it seemed like no matter what she did or what she tried no one wanted anything to do with her. Except for me.”

Mateo’s brow furrowed. “Auntie Luisa thought you were dead?”

Rose nodded once, solemnly, but her eyes were on Jane. “I was playing hide and seek with a crime lord who was so desperate for information that she injected your daddy with a not so nice little drug—”

“ _That’s more than he needs to hear, Rose._ ”

Rose waved one hand. “I was playing a long game with _my_ evil stepmother so that I didn’t have to be a crime lord anymore.” She nodded toward Jane. “I helped Michael catch her. And for all of that, he would have thrown me in jail.” She shook her head with a _tsk_ ing sound. “I didn’t feel like going to jail, and then your aunt really _would_ have been alone—”

“She wouldn’t have been alone,” Jane said, but she knew as soon as she said it that she was lying. “She would have been with us.”

“Don’t lie, Jane. It doesn’t look good on you.” Rose met her eyes. “Leave the lying to the crime lords and businessmen and gaslighters. We’re better at it. We’ve had practice.”

But, beyond that, she didn’t try to correct Jane – not because Jane wasn’t lying, but perhaps, _perhaps_ , to save Jane a little face. The problem was that Jane knew Rose was _right_. And the worst thing was that Rose, being evil, couldn’t be _right_ , and yet here she was. Jane liked to think that she would have accepted Luisa back into their family with open arms if Rose weren’t part of the scenario – liked to think that Rafael would have done the same – but when it came to Susanna, the only one who had really accepted her, even begrudgingly, was _Michael_.

“Of course, I didn’t want to kill Michael,” Rose said, finally, staring at Jane. “He was the only one of you who even seemed to _care_.”


	13. jane visits roisa pt. 3

Luisa stood just outside the living room. She hadn’t gone very far at all – just outside of where Jane could see her. She’d tried to go to Mia’s room, but Mia hadn’t been sleeping in there to begin with – her cradle was still in the room Rose and Luisa shared because it hadn’t been very long at all since they’d brought her home – and then whatever Jane and Rose were arguing about had grown so loud that she had to hear it.

It had taken everything in her not to go in there.

It had taken everything in her to stay where she was and just listen.

And it was taking everything in her now not to curl up next to her exhausted wife and kiss her cheek.

Mia glanced up at Luisa with sleepy, content eyes, blinking once or twice at her. Luisa reached down and brushed the tiny curls out of her face. They’d been a bright red when she was born and then faded to a soft brown afterwards. Rose wanted to believe that she would look more like Luisa when everything was said and done, no matter how much Luisa wanted to tell her that her genetics weren’t involved in the slightest and so Mia _couldn’t_ look like her. If anything, she would look like Rose.

But right now, staring at the baby with the dark fuzz of hair and skin that was anything but the ice ivory pale of her wife’s, Luisa could almost believe that Mia was solely hers instead of solely Rose’s. Save for the spattering of dark freckles across her skin, Luisa could believe that Rose didn’t have any part in her at all.

She supposed she had Will to thank for that.

Thinking that there was no point in listening in any longer – Rose hadn’t hated Michael, and neither had Luisa, and she was certain that the both of them had completely forgotten Nadine (she’d met her, once or twice, when she’d been helping Michael at the Marbella, but then there was the whole _mental institute_ thing, and by the time she got back, Nadine had disappeared. of course, Rose had assured her that Nadine hadn’t really died, had instead moved away to somewhere that sounded like _National City_ , which didn’t sound like a real place and was probably more like something Rose wanted to say when she didn’t want Luisa to know where Nadine had gone at all. but she wasn’t going to tell Jane any of that. not when Jane had forgotten about her so clearly) – Luisa left the wall she’d been leaning up against, cradling Mia in her arms, and returned to her room.

Jane wanted her to wear a shirt, so she _guessed_ she would wear a shirt. Mia was tired now, and full, and cradled so close to her skin that Luisa didn’t want her to move, didn’t want her to move _at all_ , but they had _guests_ and she _supposed_ —

Luisa didn’t dislike Jane. She was actually very happy that Jane and Mateo were visiting at all. She didn’t like how Jane treated Rose (especially given that Rose now spent most of the time normal spent asleep taking care of Mia and was going to be more on edge and more likely to snap _and if Jane really wanted to get along with them again, maybe Rose should have gotten more sleep first, was the thing_ , but she also wasn’t going to kick Jane out just because now was a bad time – it was hard to believe that she would come back at all). She knew Rose didn’t like how she thought Jane treated her.

But Luisa had never really been bothered by it. How could she be? She knew how she treated people. And she _had_ gotten Jane pregnant. That was a lot to get over.

(“ _You_ had to get over everything _I’ve_ done,” Rose had said only days before. “How can you believe that it’s harder for her to get over everything _you’ve_ done when it pales in comparison to me?”

“She does have a point,” JR had said, pointing her tortilla chip in her direction. “Just because you’ve done a lot doesn’t mean she can’t move on. _I_ moved on.”

Petra smiled and reached over, squeezing JR’s thigh, as though Luisa couldn’t see it. If anything, its simplicity made her feel more relaxed. If _they_ were relaxed around them, then it was okay for _her_ to be relaxed. It was simple, really.

But Luisa had shaken her head. “Jane’s like Rafael. They don’t forgive easy.” She rubbed her hand across her swollen belly. “You’re actually worse at it than she is,” she said, nodding towards Rose. “Only you used to kill people for it instead of holding a grudge.”

Rose shrugged. “Killing people’s easy. Living with them is harder. And some of them don’t deserve to live.”

“So maybe that’s what Raf and Jane are doing with us,” Luisa said, not thinking about it, and then her head snapped up, and she continued to try and explain herself as she saw Rose’s jaw tighten in that way it did right before she was about to snap. “They’re not trying to _really_ kill us, obviously. They don’t have a murderous bone in their body.”

“I take offense at that,” Petra said.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to point blame or anything, just – for them, avoiding us, pretending like we don’t exist, it’s a way of killing us.” Luisa pressed her lips together and took a deep breath. “Raf probably used to be afraid that Dad would do the same thing to him, and it’s like…it’s like forgetting, only worse, because it’s trying to cut us out entirely.” She lifted her eyes and met Petra’s briefly. “You said that Mateo didn’t even know who I was, when he had to do the family tree for his homework.” It wasn’t easy, saying it, and the words were hesitant as she continued, “And Raf acted like he didn’t have any family at all.”

“You weren’t around very often, then,” Petra said. “The girls wouldn’t have known to include you either.” Then she stopped and shook her head. “No, they knew you by name – they knew you and Emilio. They didn’t know _you_ , of course,” Petra continued, meeting Rose’s eyes, “because as far as we knew Luisa was with _Eileen_ and you were…somewhere else. And Eileen didn’t make the family tree.”

“Of course she didn’t.” Rose shrugged. “Didn’t help that people thought she murdered Scott.”

Petra stared at her. “She _did_ murder Scott.”

Rose met her stare and gave it right back to her. “The _real_ Eileen. Not me. I was with Luisa. I _have_ an alibi.” She crossed her arms. “And at least I didn’t move the body somewhere else to save—”

“ _Stop_ , both of you,” JR said, holding one hand in the air. “I don’t want to hear it. It’s as bad as trying to spend time with Jane when she’s in one of her moods.”

Rose sighed and turned to Luisa. “ _Why_ do we want to be friends with her again?”

Luisa didn’t know how to put it into words, but it was there, this silent sort of ache sitting in the pit of her chest that she couldn’t name. “Because she’s family,” she said, finally. “Because that has to mean something. Because you don’t just give up on family because they don’t like you or because they’ve done something wrong or—”

“It’s okay to let go, Lu.” Rose slowly placed a hand over hers. “It’s okay for them to let go.”

“ _No, it’s not._ ” Luisa met Rose’s eyes, unable to hold the tears back in her own. “They’re avoiding us because they’re avoiding you because they refuse to believe that you’ve grown or changed or gotten better at all, and you _have_. You _have_ , Rose. And if I can move on, then they—” She pressed her lips together and cut herself off, shaking her head. “I understand why they don’t. Why they won’t. I understand. Why it’s _harder_ for them. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want them to.”

JR nodded towards Luisa’s swollen belly. “Maybe if they knew—”

“ _No_ ,” Rose said, her voice vehement. “I don’t want them crawling back just because they want to make sure I’m not screwing up being a mother. If they’re not with us because they want to be with us, then they don’t get to share in her.” Her eyes narrowed and met each of theirs in turn. “They don’t get to know. Not from anyone other than us.”

Luisa nodded once. “I…I want them to know. I want Raf to be able to see his niece.”

“But she’s not his niece if he refuses to acknowledge you as his sister,” Rose finished for her.)

Luisa took a deep breath. Time to stop thinking about all of that. Jane was here, now, for…whatever reason. Hopefully a good one. She expected a good one, given that Mateo was here. It might be easier to focus on him than to focus on Jane. It was easier, so much easier, to talk with children than it was to talk with adults. She didn’t have to worry about whether a child liked her or not – they would tell her straight out what they felt. But adults? She never could tell with adults.

It didn’t take long to situate the shirt over her. Luisa didn’t fit a bra into place; there was no point, if she was just going to be taking it off again later for Mia to eat. But this one was nice and warm and comfortable, and if Jane was bothered—

Luisa wasn’t going to snap at her. That just wasn’t her way.

“Time to go meet your aunt!” Luisa said, leaning down close and nuzzling her daughter. Mia just blinked at her. “Okay, your _other_ aunt.” She grinned. “Your _other_ other aunt.” Then she kissed Mia’s cheek. “I’m sure she’ll love you. Everyone does.”

And, with that, she went to go try and cool down whatever was going down between her wife and her sister-in-law.


	14. sperm donor pt. 1

“Is that her?”

Will wished he had glasses like so many of his fellow doctors did. He wanted to stare at the steely-eyed redhead with something lightening the strength of his stare, wanted to feign messing with them so that he could catch her at her humanity, pretend not to see so that he could see better. But ever since he was young, Will had had phenomenal eyesight – how else could he have caught the lines between the worlds – that didn’t deteriorate with age. Some called him lucky. Sometimes he wished he didn’t see so well. It gave him such terrible migraines now.

“Yes, yes, that’s her!” Luisa exclaimed, beaming. “That’s Rose. That’s my wife.” She grabbed his hand just as soon as he’d slipped his shoes off – it was an old habit from his time spent studying abroad, making sure to come back every year, just as he’d said he would – and pulled him into the living room.

Luisa wore the same bright smile she always did, except for when she didn’t. He’d been privy to a few of those moments. It was _his_ surgeries, after all, that she’d burst into, saying something about _Carla told me to help save you_ , and he’d been thrown back to Cittàgazze and the adults who could see spectres that he’d never been able to see. He’d thought he might see one, then, coming for Luisa the way he’d imagined they might have tried to come for his mom, when she was still alive, but there was nothing. After that, she hadn’t been as annoying as he’d once believed. Or, really, she had been, but he understood a little better.

Other than two of her three roommates, Will had been the only one to visit her. Maybe because everyone else in their line of work understood how closely to the line of their own mental breakdown they straddled and were afraid that in standing so near to someone confronting it they might catch it, or maybe because he understood what it meant to be losing your grip on reality and desperately needing someone else to be the touchstone of what that means (not because he’d ever had an issue with that but because he’d lived with his mother so long). And, in truth, Will had suddenly – and against his wishes – made that connection between Luisa and his own mother. It was impossible not to – holding her away from him with one hand on each of her arms, staring into eyes that seemed just as there and yet not, listening to a voice just as insistent on helping him as his mother had once been to touch all of the benches in the park or count each of the planks in them.

And just as surely as he had made that connection, he now made one between the redhead sitting on the sofa in front of him, one leg crossed over the other at her knee, with the terrible, horrible woman who had once borne (and once kidnapped) the love of his life.

(No matter how long it had been, there was no comparison to Lyra, and he wouldn’t even try. He had one love. Everyone else…was everyone else.)

“Rose,” Luisa said, stopping just in front of him the way a schoolgirl might, trying to introduce the boy they had a crush on to their mother or father, “this is Will Parry.”

Rose’s bright blue eyes met Will’s dark ones, and he felt something dark like lightning striking between them. Some people might consider that a good thing, but Will didn’t. Lightning was a plasma, it hurt, and it often changed people in strange ways. Some of them weren’t able to feel heat or cold anymore, but that didn’t mean their body didn’t stop reacting to it. Lightning was dangerous.

Rose stood, flattened the wrinkles in her knee-length white skirt, and then held out one hand (long, slender fingers – Luisa must have enjoyed that – but covered with freckles and wrinkles because, in his experience, hands were the hardest place to hide age, and even with his missing fingers and the age old scars, his, too, were beginning to grow old). He took her right hand with his left one, watched as her brows lifted at the sight of his marred hand.

Good. She had some humanity in her, then. Or perhaps this, too, was an act. The Coulter lady had been very good at acting.

“It’s a pleasure to finally be meeting you, Will.” Rose gave his hand a gentle squeeze, but she didn’t smile. Maybe she, too, understood him for what he was, in some small way. She wasn’t going to lie to him. Not like that.

Luisa curled up on the sofa next to Rose, tucking her legs up underneath her, and then patted the spot next to her as indication that Will should sit there. He didn’t, instead taking one of the plush chairs next to them. As relaxed as Luisa appeared to be, Rose didn’t, watching his movements the way a hawk watches its prey.

But Will didn’t act like prey. He relaxed, one arm on either one of the chair, leaning back with a sigh. “So tell me a little about the procedure, if I agree.”

Luisa nodded. “We take some of Rose’s eggs,” she said, glancing to Rose, who at the same moment reached over and took her hand in her own, “and some of your sperm. Everything’s started in test tubes, and then I carry them. We hope that one sticks.” She turned back to Will with a little smile. “More than one might. That’s the way this sort of thing goes.” Then she bit her lower lip.

“We only plan to do this once,” Rose continued as Luisa glanced down.

“The full pregnancy bit, not the—” Luisa interrupted, waving one hand up between them. She swallowed. “It’s just, my age, you know.”

“It wouldn’t be a good risk.” Rose turned to Luisa. “It isn’t a good risk.”

“Well, you can’t, and I’m fine with it! I’d go the artificial insemination route myself, if I hadn’t—” Luisa shook her head and looked back to Will. “You were there. You know.”

Will watched the two of them. They weren’t really arguing, even if it looked like they were. He leaned forward. “I know you didn’t want to risk having a child with your family’s history of mental health and took the necessary measures to make sure that you couldn’t.” His gaze didn’t glance to Rose, but out of the corner of his eye, he tried to gauge her response. There was nothing different. That wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either. “But that is exactly the risk you’re taking if you use my sperm.” He still didn’t look at Rose. “You know my mother’s history.”

“Yes,” Rose answered. “We’ve talked about that.”

Will’s ears were not as good as his eyes or his hands were, and he couldn’t hear anything in her tone to suggest that she meant anything other than what she said. Perhaps a little displeased, but nothing more than that. There was nothing to indicate that displeasure was with him or with Luisa’s choice in him. There was something else. He didn’t know what.

“You’re the best choice,” Luisa said, and then she glanced down at her hands. “You’re my only choice. There’s no one else I would trust enough to ask.” She smiled, a little haphazard, a little sad. “After everything, most of my friends…we’re not really friends anymore. It’s hard to stay friends with people when they all think you’re—”

“Don’t say it,” Rose interrupted before the word could slip through Luisa’s lips, and she rubbed soothing circles on the back of Luisa’s hand. “You don’t have to say it.”

Luisa swallowed and then nodded once. “The friends I have left are, uh, useless for this sort of thing.” Then she looked up with that look and met Will’s eyes. “I wouldn’t want anyone else, anyway. You’re the one who visited me.”

Will nodded once – a short, pert thing. Then he leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath. He looked up at Rose and said, finally, “It looks like we all know each other, except I don’t know anything about you.” His head tilted to one side as he met her eyes once more. “Why don’t you tell me what I need to know?”

Convince me, he was really saying. Luisa had convinced him to come, to listen, to consider. But as soon as he saw this woman, he knew that she was the one who had to make him believe she wouldn’t ruin everything. He wasn’t afraid of her in the slightest.

He just had a feeling.

“That’s…a long story,” Luisa answered instead, and she turned to look at Rose. They had a way of communicating without speaking – of course, they did, and it didn’t surprise him in the slightest to see it happening and not understand much of it at all – and in the end, she nodded once. “I’ll go get us a drink. You’re going to want one.”

“You shouldn’t be drinking,” Will said, all at once.

Luisa grinned. “I’m not. But I want to see you spew water everywhere. You won’t believe what she tells you.”

Somehow, Will was certain that wouldn’t be the case.


	15. jane visits roisa pt. 4

When Luisa finally entered the room, Rose and Jane were glaring at each other, unspeaking. It was Mateo who noticed her, finally, and gave her a bright grin, as though _here_ was the person who was going to make everything suddenly better. Mateo obviously did not know her very well. Or he didn’t listen to his mother’s stories. Or he thought she was exaggerating. Probably that last one. What kid _really_ believes their aunt/grandmother/etc. kidnapped them when they were a baby? Luisa…would have, if she was honest with herself, and Raf _might have_ , so maybe it wasn’t too out of bounds for Mateo to believe, too. But, then, Luisa got the feeling that in this case Mateo might take after his mom more than his dad – and Jane _definitely_ didn’t seem like the kind of person who would believe that. Then again, she _was_ a telenovela writer. And a romance writer. _And_ she was _Rogelio’s_ daughter. So maybe—

“Auntie Luisa who made me be born!” Mateo proclaimed, grinning at her, and Jane’s head whipped around. It was a few seconds before she relaxed, and Luisa knew that was approximately how long it took her to realize she was wearing a shirt this time.

The _trust_ in this family!

Luisa met Rose’s eyes and gave her a little smile. “ _You_ ,” she said, “should be sleeping.”

“I’m not going to sleep while we have company,” Rose said, and she yawned again, covering her mouth with one hand. Then she swung her legs over the side of the couch and forced herself into a sitting position, patting the spot next to her. Luisa crossed to sit next to her, and Rose reached over, brushing Mia’s dark hair out of her eyes. “She looks happy.”

“She looks _tired_ ,” Luisa said, meeting Rose’s eyes briefly. “How long did you keep her up?”

“ _She_ kept _me_ up!” Rose frowned.

Luisa laughed and then looked up and met Jane’s eyes. “We have a system. I get to sleep while it’s dark and Rose watches over Mia. I sleep like a log, and Rose wakes up at the _tiniest_ misplaced sound. Then, when Rose is too exhausted to stay awake anymore, I take care of Mia.” She grinned. “She doesn’t cry as much with me. I think _she’s_ exhausted, too.”

Jane nodded. “So whose is she?” she asked all at once, as Mateo moved a little closer to the couch. Jane followed him, her eyes shifting to Rose every now and again, suspicious, even though Rose had stopped paying her much of any attention at all. One of her hands was outreached to stop Mateo and pull him back if need be.

“Ours,” Luisa said, her eyes returning to the child cradled in her arms. “She’s ours.”

Jane sighed. “I _know_ she’s _yours_ , but—”

“She’s ours, which means she’s Mateo’s cousin.”

“—aunt,” Rose said at the same time Luisa said _cousin_.

Luisa groaned and stared at Rose. “I told you to quit calling her that.”

Rose just grinned. “I’m your _stepmother_ ,” she said, “which means that Mia is your _sister_ , which means she’s Mateo’s aunt. It’s just simple logic.”

“She’s my _daughter_ ,” Luisa said, as though this were a conversation they’d had multiple times, “which means she’s Mateo’s _cousin_.” She turned to Mateo. “You can call her whichever you want. The twins call her Auntia Mia,” she continued, looking up at Jane, “which is nice, because it means they’re at least _trying_ to keep up with their Spanish.”

“ _And it’s fun to say._ ” Rose’s voice took on the tone of the twins as she grinned and leaned back against the back of the couch.

Jane nodded once, stiffly, and pressed her lips together. “So she’s…she’s _yours_ , then,” she said, looking at Luisa.

“You’d better tell her,” Rose said, giving Luisa a little shove. “I don’t think she’s going to let it go.”

“I already told her she was both of ours!”

Mia gave a little unhappy cry at Luisa’s louder voice, and Luisa bent down just enough to press a kiss to her forehead. “Don’t cry, baby; it’s okay. Mommy didn’t mean to be loud. It’s okay.”

“She can’t be _both_ of yours,” Jane said, her brow furrowing. “That’s not the way it works.”

Luisa took a breath and looked up, meeting Jane’s eyes. “Rose’s egg. I bore her. She’s _both of ours_.”

“Which you would know,” Rose continued, “if you’d been here for any of it.” She shrugged. “But you weren’t, and frankly, it really isn’t any of your business to begin with.”

Jane pressed her lips together, then opened her mouth as though she was going to say something, except that Mateo said something first.

“Is she going to have that letters thing like I do?” Mateo asked, staring up at Luisa.

Luisa stared at Mateo and blinked. “Letters thing?” She glanced up to Jane briefly. “What letters thing?”

Mateo frowned and then took on a very focused look. “HD like a tv,” he said, finally, with a firm little nod. “It’s an HD like a tv.”

“ADHD,” Jane corrected, glancing away. “He’s asking if she has ADHD.”

“Oh.” Luisa slipped off of the sofa and sat down on the floor in front of Mateo. “We won’t know that for a very long time, little man,” she said. Then she smiled. “Would you like to see her?”

Mateo nodded a few times and moved close enough so that he could look at Mia. “She’s tiny,” he said.

“Most babies are,” Luisa replied.

“I remember when _you_ were that tiny,” Rose said, and she smiled. “Your hair was a lot darker, and you hated when Nadine would hold you. You cried and cried.”

“That’s—!” Jane started to say.

“But when I would hold you,” Rose continued, sliding down off of the couch so that she was just next to Luisa, and then she reached over and ruffled Mateo’s hair, “you would get really quiet and really serious. I think you liked me.”

“ _You kidnapped him. He didn’t like you_ ,” Jane said through gritted teeth.

Rose shrugged. “Elena used to have me look after my little brother all the time. I took care of him more than she did. I’m actually _good_ with kids.”

Jane’s eyes narrowed. “You _killed_ him.”

“I said I killed him.”

Luisa gasped. “You _lied_ to me?”

Rose shook her head. “ _No_ , I did _not_ lie to you.” She sighed. “It’s been a long time, and you never met Derek, so you don’t know what he was like. You want to think he was like Rafael and really he was just a pervert.”

Jane laughed once, a harsh bark. “ _You_ raised him.”

“He was _Elena’s son_.” Rose pressed her lips together. “Some people don’t deserve to live.”

“You mean like you?” Jane asked.

“ _Alright, that’s it. Get out._ ” Luisa glared up at Jane, feeling her heart darken in her chest. “ _You_ came over here, to visit _us_ , right after I had _our_ kid, and the entire time you’ve been telling Rose off and telling _me_ off for the way I live in _my_ house, and we _might_ deserve it, but this is _our_ house, and Petra says we should be allowed the sanctity of our house, and when you’re here, you don’t take pot shots, we have discussions like reasonable people, and if you can’t do that, then I don’t want you here, and if you don’t leave, _Rose will make you leave_.” She glanced back down to Mateo and reached out, brushing the back of her hand against his cheek, and the look on her face was _painful_. “I love seeing you, little man, and I’d love to see more of you. This isn’t about you.”

“Except that it is,” Jane said, her voice tight. “This was a mistake.”

“It was your mistake to make,” Rose said, slowly standing and going toward the door. “Now, if you don’t listen to Lu—”

“Don’t worry. We’re going.” Jane placed her hand on Mateo’s shoulder and gave it a little squeeze. He looked up at her, and for a moment, it looked as though he would complain and disagree. But one look back at his aunts suggested that any tantrum he wanted to throw about wanting to spend more time with them would be better had without them there. So he just followed his mom out the door, flinching as it shut behind them.

“That went about as well as I thought it would go,” Rose said, collapsing on the couch again.

Luisa moved to sit next to her again. “I hoped it would go better.” She brushed a hand across Rose’s forehead. “I think it’s time for you to get some sleep.”

“Yes, dear,” Rose said, yawning again. “But give me a kiss first.”

“Of course.” Luisa leaned over and pecked her lips. “Now sleep. I’ll take care of things from here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i do plan on a follow-up to this series of things, but it might be a bit. i have something else currently being semi-brainstormed for tomorrow's post.


	16. mayan calendar

“They say the world’s supposed to end tomorrow.”

Luisa says it as nonchalantly as possible, the bottle of vodka open next to her and already more than a third empty. It isn’t her favorite in terms of taste because there isn’t really much taste with good vodka. If anything, it feels just like drinking water but with a slight burn to it. She drinks vodka when she wants to be drunk. She can pretend that it’s water until she doesn’t need to pretend anymore.

Even without drinking for months since her last graduation from rehab, Luisa’s still a _functional_ alcoholic. She could have bottles of beer at a time and not feel the effect of any of it. Those aren’t her favorite either. They’re more Rafael’s speed – beer and whiskey and gin and all that very strong masculine _whatever_ because guys don’t want to drink the fruity flavors. That isn’t to say those are her favorite either; as much as Luisa _does_ enjoy her pina coladas and daiquiris, they don’t _do_ anything for her. Sometimes she wonders if she even _has_ a favorite anymore.

She does. She doesn’t like to think about it. It makes her want to drink.

What does it matter when she’s already drinking?

Luisa’s head lilts to one side, dark brown hair cascading in waves across her open hand, and when she smiles, it seems almost as bitter as the drinks she isn’t drinking. Her eyes aren’t glazed over. She seems coherent, cognizant, _sober_ , if Rose couldn’t see the open bottle next to her or the glass that she isn’t even sure Luisa is using resting on the countertop, if she couldn’t smell the liquor on her breath.

Rose has never much liked alcohol. Her father was much like Rafael – a beer, whiskey, gin man who would drink too much and try to sleep it off and forget that he even had a daughter to begin with, much less the wife who had left him months, days, _years_ previously. He’d wake up stone cold sober with a hangover he only knew how to quench with more liquor, get to work with eyes and face red from drinking too much, and pound away at his woodwork so well that his managers never questioned him about it. What did it matter what he pounded when he got back from work?

“They say the world’s supposed to end tomorrow,” Luisa says, picking up her glass and toasting her with it, “and I thought, _why not?_ ” Her smile is watery and bitter and unpleasant, and she throws back the glass like a high school girl would throw back a shot, but it lands on the table with the softest of clinks like wine glasses barely touching each other at a tasting.

Rose doesn’t like alcohol, but she’s grown accustomed to wine. It is impossible to run about in the upper echelons of the circles she’s had to run around in – whether that was with Elena or now with Emilio – without being able to taste and appreciate and _talk about_ wine. Its unique flavor she knows well, and she can talk _anyone_ under the table with her knowledge, if she wants. But those upper echelons don’t want to hear about a crinkle-haired redhead running barefoot through Switzerland vineyards and grabbing grapes with her hands to test if they’re ripe, don’t want to hear about summers spent smashing grapes with the same bare feet to make the sweetest juice she had ever tasted, _don’t want to hear_ about missing teeth and a freckled face and purple-red splatters on overalls and bare hands and cheeks that only seem paler for the dark color splashed against them. They like to believe she is one of them, and regaling them with those tales would only serve to undermine her.

“May I?” Rose takes the glass and pours herself a little bit from the open bottle then passes the glass back and forth between her hands before taking a little sip of it. She has never liked the taste of vodka. It’s never felt as smooth to her as she knows Luisa believes it is. The burn feels a little like being strangled, and she splutters, coughs, covers her mouth before taking another drink to soothe herself and forcing it down, forcing it to _stay_ down.

“I thought you didn’t drink unless….” Luisa shakes her head, swallows once, and her spit tastes sour after the vodka. She brushes her hand through her long brown hair and then rests her forehead against it. “You wanted to drink at the bar.”

“I thought _you_ didn’t drink anymore,” Rose says, head tilting so that her blue eyes can glance over the form of the woman next to her. Luisa cradles her head like she already has the hangover she won’t have until the morning, if she has one at all, if she lets herself have one.

“They say the world is supposed to end tomorrow,” Luisa says a third time, and she turns her head just enough so that she can meet Rose’s eyes, “and I always drink when my world is ending.” She smiles, and it isn’t bitter this time, just far away. Rose can see it, can see the smile, and knows even without the physical shrug that that’s what Luisa is doing, mentally. “So let me get another glass.” Luisa starts to stand and slips, stumbles, and then rights herself before Rose can reach a hand out to steady her. “We can toast it together.”

Rose watches her and Luisa steadies herself against the counter, hands tight on its edge to keep herself upright, and presses her lips together. “Here,” Rose says, finally, and she takes one of Luisa’s hands in her own. “Lean on me. I’m here.”

“Are you really?” Luisa asks, staring at her again. “Or am I making you up just so that I don’t have to see the world end alone?”

“I’m really here,” Rose says, meeting Luisa’s eyes. She squeezes her hand. “My hand on your hand.” Then, immediately, without thinking, she cups her cheek. “My hand on your cheek.”

Luisa nods once, repeating after her. “Your hand on my hand,” she murmurs, glancing down and closing her eyes, turning her hand so that their fingers can interlace together. “Your hand on my cheek,” she repeats, turning her face just enough to press a kiss to her palm. “Your skin on my lips.”

Rose slowly moves Luisa so that the other woman leans against her, and she walks her over to the couch, where they both sit. Luisa leans more against her now than she did as they were walking, collapsing on her, letting her head loll onto Rose’s shoulder. Her eyes flutter open, and she looks over to the counter. “You forgot the vodka.”

“I didn’t forget the vodka,” Rose corrects, and she rests her chin atop Luisa’s head. “I left it there on purpose. Just because the world is ending doesn’t mean it’s time for you to drink.”

Luisa’s brows furrow, and she looks up just enough to press a kiss to Rose’s chin. “I think that’s the best – the _only_ – time to drink. It dulls the pain.”

“And if the world doesn’t end?” Rose asks, brushing Luisa’s hair back and meeting her eyes. “You’ll be drinking again for nothing.”

“I can stop whenever I want,” Luisa says, but they both know that it isn’t true. She curls against Rose’s chest, burrows her head just there. “My head on your chest,” she murmurs as she closes her eyes again. “The fabric of your shirt on my skin. Your heartbeat in my ears.”

Rose is gentle, when she kisses Luisa’s forehead, when she wraps her arm around her, and she holds her close. “If the world doesn’t end,” she says, her voice soft, “you have to go back to rehab next year. You have to go to a _good_ rehab. One that does more than whatever the one you’ve been going to did because that one isn’t working.”

“Ok,” Luisa says, and she opens her eyes just enough to look up at Rose again. “And if the world ends?”

It’s not easy to think about. Rose refuses to think about it. Luisa isn’t either; she’s been drinking to not feel the weight of it on her shoulders. There’s never been any weight on Rose’s shoulders like Luisa.

“Then I’m glad that I’m with you,” Rose murmurs.

Luisa smiles, but there’s still that sadness there, no bitterness, just grief. “I’m glad you’re with me, too,” she says, and together they stare out the window as the clock continues to count down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "It doesn't count if you're not real," Luisa murmurs a few moments later.  
> "I'm real, Lu, and you'll see me in the morning."  
> "If the world doesn't end."  
> Rose sighs. "If the world doesn't end."


	17. high school fake dating au pt. 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> non-con dick guy making out with clara trigger warning. just a head's up.
> 
> it's not super described, and it's a past event, but clara goes over it.

“I can’t _have_ friends over,” Luisa says, holding a French fry between her fingertips and stabbing it in Clara’s direction. “I threw this _huge_ party last year and _everybody_ came and it was _great_.” She leaned across, propping her elbows on the cafeteria table the way that proper ladies _don’t_ , a huge, bright grin on her lips.

Clara tried not to look at her lips. Or she tried not to look at them too long. She wasn’t ashamed of looking. She _liked_ looking! A little too much, maybe, and she probably wouldn’t be staring so much if Johnny Neanderthal had caught her behind the gym at her old school and kissed her a little too much a little too quickly – he’d bit her lower lip so hard it split and his hands had been very rough and _very not okay_ – and her mom had sued the school board. And his family. And a lot of other things, _none of which_ had ended in their favor, and then the sports kids got mad at her because he was the star quarterback or something to do with some sport that she couldn’t have cared fuck all about—

Her mother had ripped her out of that school and brought her to this one, and now she was sitting in the cafeteria staring at the girl who hadn’t left her side yet for hell or high water, trying not to look at her lips – not too look at them _too long_ – and wonder if kissing her wouldn’t be an altogether much more pleasurable experience.

Luisa’s eyes twinkled when Clara looked back up to meet them – _My eyes are up here, Ginger!_ – and she knew that she’d been caught looking. Well, fine! Let her catch her! She didn’t mind!

Actually, she would much rather take Luisa out behind the gym of her new school and—

Something. Kiss her! Or _something_.

Luisa winked at her, and Clara blushed a bright red, staring down at her cardboard box milk. She fiddled with her straw. “A party sounds fun,” she said, but she said it like a question.

“Oh, it was _great_.” Luisa leaned back in her metal chair, straightening her short skirt. It was barely long enough to go past her fingers, and it _certainly_ wasn’t that long when she was sitting, but Luisa tried to make it look like it was. Most of her skirts and shorts were like that. (Clara’d kept track. Not that she’d tell you that!) Luisa began to twirl a strand of her wavy brown hair around one finger. “Dad wouldn’t have minded coming home to a huge party. He kind of expected it. You know, leave a high school kid at home alone for the weekend, they’re going to have a party, yeah? But we broke into his favorite liquor cabinet and drank the entire thing and he wasn’t happy about that.” She heaved a great sigh, and her chest moved, and _Clara was very gay_. “So I can’t have friends over anymore.” Luisa shrugged and leaned forward. “What about you?”

“ _Me?_ ” Clara certainly didn’t squeak. She wasn’t the sort of girl to squeak. She was more the sort to fiddle with her straw some more and pretend that she _wasn’t_ still blushing a bright scarlet red. It wasn’t like she didn’t have other friends! She did! But Luisa had been her first. Friend! Her first _friend_!

_Oh, this was bad._

Clara shook her head without looking up. “Mom would love for me to have friends over, but she’s the sort of person who would peek in every two or three minutes to make sure that we were still friends and we were doing our homework like good little children and are you going to stay for dinner you aren’t allergic to anything are you _what do you mean you’re a vegetarian?_ and then she’d give me a huge glare like it was some personal offense that you don’t eat meat.” Her brows lifted, and she met Luisa’s eyes again. “Trust me, you don’t want to go there.”

“Hm.” Luisa’s lips pursed. “So how are we _ever_ going to spend time together if you can’t come to my place and I _definitely_ don’t want to go to your place?”

Clara blinked twice. Luisa said _spend time together_ as if they weren’t going to just jump onto Netflix and watch Buffy. Or Orange Is The New Black, which Luisa said was only good for the first two seasons, but she should _really_ see those. And which Luisa demanded they see _together_ , since she hadn’t seen it. Probably something about wanting to see her reactions. It probably wasn’t even _good_. She’d rather just—

“You know, if we told him we were _dating_ ,” Luisa mused, her head tilting to one side, elongating her neck, and sometimes Clara was certain that Luisa was doing all of this just to mess with her, although she wouldn’t say she didn’t _enjoy_ it.

Clara wondered, briefly, if Luisa had ever kissed anyone. Probably. Definitely. Which meant she was probably _good_ at it. Better than Clara was anyway, what with all her practicing with those stupid dummies and masks and they tasted horrible and she gave up after a while. And the Cosmo tips were probably dead wrong! _Mouth fruit names like pomegranate or avocado_ or whatever the fuck they said. Johnny Neanderthal hadn’t done anything like that.

Well, of course, Luisa was nothing _like_ Johnny Neanderthal.

“ _If we told him we were dating_ ,” Luisa said, and Clara hadn’t even noticed it until the rest of the sentence was finished, “we could probably hang at my place. Dad didn’t say anything about no _girlfriends_. Just no _friends_. And, yeah, I know, _girlfriends_ has _friends_ , but you and I know that it’s an entirely different thing and he’ll at least let it pass for the first time and then we could Netflix and chill and have homework out whenever he comes and checks in on us.” She laughed and shook her head. “He never checks in on us. And he always knocks first. We’d just have to worry about—”

“You want to tell him we’re…we’re _dating_.”

Clara took a long drink of her milk. She wished it was chocolate, but they’d been out. She frowned and reached out, swiping the chocolate milk from Luisa’s tray and taking a swig of it instead. Then she rubbed the back of her hand against her lips so that she wouldn’t get a mustache – Luisa didn’t use straws. Something about too much plastic waste. Clara just didn’t want the mustache.

“Just so we can watch Buffy.” Luisa grinned. “Or so you can watch Orange Is The New Black and _I_ can watch _you_ watch Orange Is The New Black.” She didn’t say anything about the chocolate milk. Maybe she’d been done with it. She took another bite of her French fry. “You in?”

Clara gave a firm nod, even though her stomach was doing flip-flops. “Yeah,” she said. “I’m in.”


	18. high school fake dating au pt. 2

“So _this_ is my house.”

Clara’s mouth started to drop open and then she gritted her teeth firmly together. No. None of that. She’d told Luisa she wouldn’t. In fact, she’d _had_ to before Luisa’d even let her into her car.

( _“Okay, but my house is huge, and everyone I bring over stands there all fish-mouthed—”_

_“Fish-mouthed?” Clara asked, one eyebrow raising. “What’s that?”_

_“Oh, you know, like_ this _.” Luisa’s mouth dropped open and her eyes bugged out all big and wide. She moved her mouth up and down a few times, mimicking the way fish breathed in the water, and then dropped the act all at once, winking at Clara with a huge grin. “You won’t do anything like that, right?”_

 _Clara laughed at her. Then she shifted her right backpack strap where it dug into her shoulder. “Yeah, course. Can we just go?” She didn’t glance over her shoulder because she wasn’t running away from anyone, but she’d been looking at Luisa’s mouth a_ little _too long there, and she could feel herself all_ smiles _, and that wasn’t attractive Clara, it really wasn’t._

_Besides, she was really eager to get into Lu’s car and see what kind of music they’d listen to._

_…and definitely not thinking about other things that could happen in cars. Nope. Not at all._

_“Fine,” Luisa said, and she pounded one fist on the top of her purple pt cruiser as she unlocked the doors. “Get in!”_

_The seats were spotless. And leather. And under the scent of French fries and Clara thought she smelled cheeseburgers but there was no way she did because Luisa didn’t_ eat _cheeseburgers, the car still smelled new. She shoved her backpack down at her feet. “How long have you had this thing?”_

_Luisa shrugged. “A couple months. Good behavior for not bringing people over to the house.”_

_“Like me?” Clara asked, raising one eyebrow again._

_“Nah, you’re my_ girlfriend _.” Luisa grinned. “I’m not breaking any rules with you.”_ )

Of course, Luisa had not impressed on her the absolute size of her house. No. Not a house. Mansion. This was a freaking mansion.

Clara looked over to Luisa and saw the other girl staring at her, watching for any sign of shock. “No fish mouth,” she said, trying to make sure she focused on Luisa instead of the mansion looming in front of her. “Unless you have a pool. And then I’m kind of obligated. I do a really cute fish impression.”

“ _Awwwwww_.” Luisa tapped the steering wheel. “Man, you should have _told_ me that! We could have gone swimming instead! I’m sure you look absolutely _killer_ in a swimsuit.”

Clara blinked a couple of times and looked away from the other girl, her cheeks flushing a bright red, because if she looked at Luisa any longer right now, she would spend _way_ too much time imagining _her_ in a swimsuit. Not that looking away from her particularly helped with that. She could already see her—

“You’ve probably got a cute bikini,” Clara said, stumbling over her own tongue. “Like in the song.”

“The song?”

Clara glanced over to see Luisa’s head tilted to one side, her hair brushing across one shoulder. She’d worn it half up today, which kept it out of her face, but it was just—

There was one strand that had pulled out of the top and kept dangling right by her ear, and Clara just wanted to reach across and tuck it back for her. But she couldn’t do that. Girls didn’t do that with their friends. They did that with their girlfriends, maybe, which meant maybe she could do that if they needed to, you know, convince Luisa’s dad that they really were dating, if he showed up, and he might not even show up, so she shouldn’t even think about it as a possible thing they do at all. Absolutely not. Nope.

“You know.” Clara gulped and forced herself to grin. “She had an itty bitty, teeny weeny—”

“— _yellow polka dot bikini!_ ” Luisa said at once, finishing it for her. “Right!” She leaned back against her leather seat and gave Clara a smug look. “Well, if you really _must_ know—”

Clara couldn’t help but lean forward the slightest bit. “Yeah?”

Luisa shrugged. “You’ll have to come back with yours. Show you mine if you show me yours kind of thing.” She sighed. “I miss pool parties.” Then she gave Clara a quick onceover. “Yours is probably blue. For your eyes. Right?”

“ _Maybe._ ”

Clara actually wasn’t a _fan_ of swimsuits in general. Not after Johnny Neanderthal. They’d had a swimming pool at her old school, and she’d chosen to take that for her obligatory post-gym gym class. He hadn’t been in her class, but he’d been in one of the other gym classes at the same time, running around the track the floor above them, and he would look down and stare at her. She hadn’t felt _ashamed_ or anything. She loved her body! She just didn’t like the way he _looked_ at her.

So when Elena had given her money and dropped her off at the mall and told her she could get whatever suit she wanted just as long as she had one for when they went to the beach that summer, she’d gotten….

Well, Clara liked it and she looked good in it and she wasn’t going to be wearing it to the beach with Elena anyway. If she did, she’d probably wear a shirt over it. But if Luisa invited her over, she couldn’t just wear a shirt. And, you know, maybe she wouldn’t mind, with Luisa around. If it was just the two of them, that’d be okay. Maybe.

“Come on, Clara,” Luisa said with a little laugh. “You’re starting to drool.”

“No, I’m not!” Clara wiped the back of her hand along her lips anyway, just in case, and there was nothing there. Absolutely nothing! She narrowed her eyes and glared at Luisa, but she’d already gotten out of the car and didn’t see it at all. Waste of a good glare, obviously.

Of course, as Clara followed Luisa into the mansion, the wonder of it didn’t drop in the slightest bit. The ceilings were easily three stories tall, and there was a huge chandelier, and there was so much glass that it was surprising no one had tried to break one of the back windows – _and there was the pool_. Clara froze inside of the house, just turning around and staring at everything. It was almost like being a princess in a fairytale – no, not quite, because a princess would be used to everything, but maybe how Sleeping Beauty must have felt the first time the fairies took her to the castle, or _would have_ felt if she hadn’t been so hung up over thinking she was being forced to marry a prince she’d never met instead of the Philip guy she’d just met in the woods the day before. Which had seemed dumb to Clara – like, she’d just _met_ the guy! So why should it matter? But also the idea of being forced to marry some man she’d never met sent shivers down her spine, and if _she’d_ been Sleeping Beauty, she’d probably imagine that stranger with Johnny Neanderthal’s face.

She wished he’d been all pimply and gangly. Maybe the other girls would have understood if he had been.

“Hey, c’mon.” Luisa took her hand in hers and interlaced her fingers, and Clara felt her heart start up again in her chest with a painful, heavy _thud_. “My room’s upstairs.”

“Your…your _room_?” Clara asked, swallowing once. “Why don’t we just curl up on one of the couches down here and watch something?”

“Because you’re supposed to be my girlfriend, silly.” Luisa met her eyes and cocked her head to one side. “Haven’t you ever had a girlfriend before?” Before Clara could say anything else, she continued, waving her other hand, “Or a _boyfriend_. I’m not judgy. Whatever it is you like.”

“ _Girls_ ,” Clara spat out before Luisa could continue further. “I like girls. And I haven’t ever had a girlfriend before. Or a boyfriend.”

Luisa’s grin grew mischievous then. “So you’ve never been kissed, then, right?”

Clara bit her lower lip and looked away. “I don’t want to talk about that,” she said, because she didn’t. It wasn’t important. Or it was, but she didn’t want to talk about it. Not with Luisa. Who she knew was probably a great kisser and wouldn’t want to know that Clara wasn’t one either. It didn’t matter. “So, um, why are we going to your room?”

Luisa sighed and gazed upwards. “First, we’re going to my room because my obnoxious little brother is going to get here any minute now and we want to be safely out of the way before he shows up and starts pestering you with a whole bunch of questions you really don’t want to answer.” She gave Clara’s hand a little squeeze where she still held it. “Second, we’re going to my room because that’s what you do when you Netflix and chill. We both sit on my bed and pull up my laptop and turn something on.”

“Oh.” Clara nodded once in understanding. “Okay.”

Suddenly, there was a loud sound of something pounding the floor in the background, and Luisa gave a harsh tug on Clara’s hand. “C’mon! We’ve got to go! Now!”

And before Clara could say anything else, Luisa was dragging her from the main room up the stairs and down a few hallways – Clara would get so lost here if she had to find Luisa’s room by herself – and then they stopped in front of a door with _No Boys Allowed!_ on a white piece of paper pasted to the door.

She didn’t know people really _did_ that.

Of course people really did that.

Clara took a deep breath. “So this…this is your room?”

“Yeah,” Luisa said, and she swallowed a deep breath. Then she smiled, opened the door, and pushed Clara inside before shutting the door behind them and locking it. She turned to face Clara and lifted a finger to her lips. “Shhhhhh.”

It was dark. Really dark. And it was taking Clara’s eyes a while to adjust. But she could be quiet. She was good at being quiet. That’s why she’d been liked at her old school, after all. For knowing when to be quiet.

“Just tell me when,” Clara said, her eyes meeting what she hoped were Luisa’s, and she settled in to wait.

“ _Shhhhh!_ ” Luisa repeated, pressing one hand over Clara’s mouth.

Clara’s eyes widened, but she didn’t say anything. Mostly she thought about how warm Luisa’s hand felt against her mouth. Except she wasn’t thinking about that. That was weird. And she was _very gay_ and that was still _very weird_.

If they were really dating, she could kiss her palm.

_Okay, time to stop thinking and to chill until Luisa says otherwise._


	19. Chapter 19

It didn’t take long.

It just _felt_ long.

Maybe it was because Luisa was standing right there next to her with her hand clamped over her mouth and _goodness_ , Clara could _smell_ her this close – all honey and cinnamon like the soapipilas they sometimes had at school, only Luisa smelled _so much better_ and, honestly, if she thought about it, she was sure Luisa would _taste_ better, too, if they kissed – so much better than Johnny Neanderthal, who had tasted like spit and sweat and tongue and—

_She wasn’t thinking about him. She was thinking about Luisa. Who would taste like gold._

Only not really like gold, because gold was a precious metal and metal didn’t taste good at all. Luisa would taste _good_. Like honey and cinnamon. Like soapipilas. Like powdered donuts. Like—

She could lick her hand and find out.

_She was so gay._

_Also that would be gross._

_Also Luisa would definitely not like that, so she was just going to stand here and pretend that she didn’t feel really odd with Luisa’s hand clamped over her mouth standing this close to her._

Luisa let out a deep breath and finally moved her hand from Clara’s lips. “Okay,” she said, smiling. “I think we’re clear. It’s just really hard when Raf gets back, if he notices before we’re out of the way, he’ll be all up in our hair and _I forgot to turn the light on, I’m so sorry, I’m not thinking_ —” She reached over behind her and flicked the light on.

The room was suddenly filled with a soft blue glow. Each wall had a different drawing of coral around its edge and just above those were different schools of fish swimming near or around or through them. Above the coral, there were more fish, but different ones. Sometimes there was an octopus or a little squid, but no sharks, no dolphins. One wall seemed to be dedicated just to different rays, one of them seeming to swim just over to Luisa’s bed.

_And Luisa’s bed._

You’d think, maybe, a huge sea shell, all classical painting reminiscent, or maybe a sunken ship, with different layers, built like a bunkbed – but, no, because this was _Luisa Alver_ we’re talking about. And Luisa Alver’s bed was shaped like a huge treasure chest with the top lopped off, big and open and the inside all scarlet and gold and plush because of course the real treasure was none other than Luisa herself.

“Wow,” Clara said, because she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Luisa’s face lit up. “You like it?”

“It’s beautiful.”

There were even little bubbles drawn on the ceiling. _Everything_ had been noticed and taken care of and just—

“Did you do all of this yourself?” Clara asked, trying to avoid going all fish-mouthed, even though in a room like this, she might have fit right in. She shifted the strap on her shoulder, trying to figure out if there was anywhere for her to put her backpack.

Luisa slipped her shoes off right at the doorway and dropped her backpack right there before digging her laptop out of it. Clara followed suit, only didn’t pull her laptop out. They only needed one for Netflix, after all, and compared to Luisa’s, hers was…not _old_ but definitely a little bit _clunky_. The carpet underneath her feet was a soft sandy color, and it was just as soft as its color. “I had a _little_ help,” Luisa admitted, curling up on her bed and patting the spot right next to her. “I started when I was really small. My mom and my dad and I used to go to aquariums all the time, and after my mom died—” She stopped abruptly. “That’s a little too real for sitting and watching Netflix, yeah? So we don’t have to talk about it. But, yeah, I did most of this myself. It’s calming. I really liked doing it.”

Clara carefully situated herself on the bed next to Luisa, leaving a good amount of space between them because she didn’t want Luisa to feel like she was too close. “You can be as real with me as you want,” she said.

“Thanks. You’re sweet.” Luisa patted the spot just next to her, gesturing for Clara to scoot closer. “You’re supposed to be my girlfriend if Dad walks in on us. You’ve _got_ to sit closer.”

Clara’s eyes narrowed. “You locked the door.”

“So?” Luisa grinned at her. “Scoot _closer_. You’re going to have a hard time seeing the screen from there.”

“If you were _really_ my girlfriend,” Clara started as she scooted so close that their thighs were just touching and then refused to scoot any closer because _they were touching again_ and that was a little more than she could try and deal with right now, “you wouldn’t have cut off and told me what you were going to tell me.”

Luisa’s grin faltered. “No, I wouldn’t.” She looked away, winding one of the waves of her brown hair around one finger. “That’s not what I use girlfriends for.” Her lips pressed together. “I didn’t want to go to aquariums anymore, after my mom died,” she said, finally, “but I missed the fish and I thought, well, I was six, and you don’t really think that much when you’re six, and I just started taking pencils and crayons and drawing on the walls, and that kind of helped, only it didn’t really, and then Dad got me paint and we did the shading, and then I just…got good, I guess.” She shook her head. “So, um, what did you want to watch?” Her grin picked back up. “Ready to try Orange Is The New Black?”

Clara stared at Luisa, trying to process everything that she’d said so very very fast. Then she said, “No. I think, um. I think I’d like to hear more about you, if that’s…if it’s…if it wouldn’t bother you too—” She shook her head. “I’d be more comfortable with Buffy. It’s funny.”

“Orange Is The New Black is funny, too,” Luisa said, her head tilting to one side. “But if you want to learn more about me, I’ve got a better idea.” She shoved her laptop over to one side, and it landed on one of the coral, which Clara hadn’t noticed was shaped to be a side table. “Let’s play truth or dare.”

Clara’s gaze moved from where the laptop landed to Luisa, whose own eyes were sparkling with mischief. This couldn’t be a _good_ thing. Definitely not a good thing. Not with the girl she liked. Calling her a crush felt so _weird_ , like _painful_ , and Luisa didn’t make Clara feel painful. _Clara_ made Clara feel painful. All that embarrassment and saying the wrong things and stumbling over her words and blushing and looking away and—

“Uh, yeah,” she said instead. “Sure.” She bit her lower lip. “How do we decide who’s going to start?”

“Oh, you can start,” Luisa said, leaning back on the palms of her hands and stretching ever so slightly. Clara couldn’t help but stare.

Which wasn’t good. She shouldn’t stare. She looked away furiously.

“No,” Clara said, stammering over the word. “You can’t just let me start first. _You_ can start first, since you already told me all of that about your mom and the aquarium and painting your room and everything.”

Luisa’s head tilted to one side. “That was just conversation,” she said. “You didn’t make me say any of that. Like in a game.”

“Well, why don’t we rock paper scissors for it?” Clara grinned, because that felt like a solid idea. “Best two out of three.” She clenched one hand into a fist and held it out at the ready. “And no cheating, and no letting me win.”

“Oh, you’re _on_!” Luisa held out her hand, too.

Two games later, and Clara flat out lost. _Not intentionally_ , of course, she will have you know! She was just _horrible_ at guessing what Luisa would do. Or maybe it was just that Luisa was really, really good at figuring her out. She blushed brightly and brushed her frizzy red hair back out of her face, not that it stayed at all. “Okay,” she said. “You go.”

Luisa grinned brightly. “ _Truth or Dare._ ”


	20. dottielint fluff

“Hey.”

Janet shifted from her position atop her partner, still breathing heavy, and lowered herself next to her. She could still feel the static sparking along her skin, sparking at anything new she touched, as she moved her hand from Dottie’s sweat-covered skin to the black fitted sheet beneath them. All at once, she felt _sore_ , and she knew she couldn’t have held herself up any longer even if she wanted to.

Dottie ran a hand through her hair before pressing a kiss to her cheek. “That was perfect,” she murmured, nestling against her neck.

It all still felt a little too much for her.

Janet forced herself to stay where she was, despite wanting, more than anything, to separate herself from the woman next to her. It’d taken too long to get to the point of consistently sharing a bed, and she wasn’t going to kick her out now. Even if she _did_ understand. Even if she _was_ patient. She wasn’t patient with herself.

Dottie ran a hand through Janet’s hair again, grinning. “I love your hair like this.”

“I hate it.”

Janet didn’t even have to look to know that every strand was standing straight on edge, like when a normal person touched one of those static glass balls at magic houses or when they were on a mountaintop and about to be struck by lightning. (In the former circumstance, they would be fine, but in the latter, they best _run_. Most people didn’t survive getting struck by lightning. Most people weren’t _her_.)

Dottie’s hair, despite the electricity that had surged through her, still seemed almost immaculate. Of course, it was mussed – not as much as Janet’s would be, if she were normal, because Dottie had a penchant for pulling hair that Janet didn’t have (why cause pain that way when everything she needed was at her fingertips, pulsed under and along her skin, and sent it where she wanted it when she wanted it) – but it wasn’t standing on end. Even the strands that were seemed to be losing their strength as the seconds ticked by, and soon they’d lay just as flat as the rest of it did.

“I hate _you_.”

“No, you don’t.” Janet curled up on one side and stared Dottie straight in her bright blue eyes. She didn’t do that very often – couldn’t until she found the ways they were so drastically different from Rose’s – the lighter, brighter shades in comparison to the darker gray-blue of Rose’s. But finding those had taken far too long. So much about Dottie had once looked almost identical to the woman she had once loved and who had never loved her – her hair had been the most drastic difference, blonde where Rose’s had been red; and of course, she’d been thinner, sharper, leaner. But look at her eyes without looking into them, and it was all Rose.

Except that it wasn’t.

“You’re right. I don’t.” Dottie grinned, one sharp canine poking out over her lip. “You don’t hate me either.”

“Sometimes I do,” Janet growled, and her eyes shifted away from Dottie’s. Outside, she could see the thunderclouds gathering overhead. She was sure a few of the people outside had enjoyed the display – the lightning flickering across the sky. At least they hadn’t caused an outage this time.

_This time._

Dottie ran a finger along the sweat slick along Janet’s cheek and then pressed a kiss just there. “But not right now.”

Janet could feel the shock before it happened, knew that it didn’t hurt Dottie one bit. She turned so that their lips could almost meet.

“Not right now.”


	21. mateo gets a playhouse pt. 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> REMEMBER HOW I SAID FOLLOW UP TO JANE VISITS ROISA?
> 
> yeah it ended up being longer than i thought it would be SO here's the first part yolo.

“Wow.”

The word breathed in a hush through Jane’s lips as she stepped outside into the backyard. It had been a few months since the day she’d taken Mateo with her and tried to visit Rose and Luisa, not that she’d ever told Rafael about it. (Mateo had started to bring it up, but Rafael guessed he’d just been dreaming and Jane had done nothing to dissuade him from that thought. They’d had to have a nice conversation later about things they don’t tell Daddy. Mateo hadn’t seemed too happy about that.) She’d just gotten back from another part of her book tour – she’d been gone for almost a week, a few days of which she hadn’t tried to skype or facetime with Raf or Mateo. This was a point in her favor; on her first tour, she’d demanded they both come with her, and on the second one, she’d made sure to keep in contact with them multiple times a day. It had taken many, _many_ tours before Rafael insisted that he was just fine and even more before she actually believed him. It had taken Rafael adamantly refusing to answer her and insisting that she take some time for herself – _to relax_ – before she gave in. The first time she’d been terrified, but as time wore on, she’d grown accustomed to it.

She hadn’t expected Rafael to make an impromptu tree fort jungle gym massive _thing_ while she was gone. Jane hadn’t even known he was capable of such a thing. He’d probably called someone in to do it while she was gone. She was sure Mateo loved it.

Jane’s heart swelled with warmth and light as she pulled out her phone and called her husband. “Rafael, this is _amazing_ ,” she said as soon as he picked up. “I can’t believe you made such a mammoth fort! How long did that take you?”

There was silence on the other end before Rafael said, finally, “I didn’t make anything.”

Jane blinked. Then she laughed. “Of course not. You had someone else make it. But, seriously, how long have you been planning this? Months?”

“Jane, I didn’t do anything. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Jane stared at the tree fort in front of her. Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t know anything about the fort in the backyard?”

“No?” There was silence. “Should I?”

“Rafael,” Jane began, crossing her arms and staring up at the fort, trying to see just how high it went. “ _Someone_ built a fort in our backyard. If you’ve been here while I was gone, how do you not know about that?”

There was an even longer silence this time. Then, finally, “Look, Jane, something came up at the firm—”

“And you didn’t _tell me_?” Jane turned on one heel and stormed back into their living room, not that it mattered because there was no one around to see her. Mateo was at school – or, more likely, on the bus on the way back – and she assumed Rafael was at work. “Who took care of Mateo?”

“I left him with Petra and JR and the twins. I figured that would be fine—”

“That _is_ fine, but Rafael, you have to tell me!” Jane opened her mouth to say something else and then turned to look at the fort again. She shook her head. “Look, I’ll talk to you later. I need to call Petra.”

“Jane—”

But she hung up before she could hear him say anything else. She stared at the tree fort, trying to recapture the sheer _joy_ she’d had at seeing it in front of her, as she called Petra. The phone rang and rang – of course Petra was busy; managing a hotel like the Marbella wasn’t an easy thing to do – but she finally heard her pick up on the last ring. Jane relaxed as much as she could while still mad at her husband. “Petra, hey, I just wanted to _thank you_ for the _tree fort_.” She smiled, and she could almost capture the feeling she’d had when she first saw it. It _was_ impressive, after all. “You must have gotten some professionals in – I know there’s no way you could have made all of this – and it must have been short notice since you wouldn’t have known that Raf would be gone and—”

“Look, Jane, I’m a little busy.”

Jane blinked. She switched the phone to her other hand. “Too busy to hear how grateful I am to you?” she asked. “That doesn’t sound like you.”

All of a sudden, the front door slammed shut, and something – a backpack, Jane knew without seeing it that it was a backpack – dropped with a harsh thud to the floor. She turned and saw Mateo running towards the backyard. He froze as soon as he saw her, but he grinned at her. “Did you see what Auntia Rose and I made this weekend?” he asked, his eyes bright and excited.

Jane stared at him.

Mateo’s face fell. “Wait. I wasn’t supposed to tell you that.”

“Petra,” Jane said through gritted teeth, “did you let _Rose_ around _my son_ without my—”

“Look, Jane, I said I was busy. I have to go.”

And with that, Petra hung up on her just as abruptly as she’d hung up on Rafael.

Jane could feel her entire self growing tense, and she shoved the phone back into her purse before she could break it. Of course, she wouldn’t have actually broken it. She wasn’t _Rose_ , after all. Her temper wasn’t _that_ bad.

Mateo tried to grin again. “It looks cool, right?”

“Mateo, you are not playing on that thing, and as soon as your daddy gets home, we are going to have a serious discussion about who you are allowed to spend your time with when I’m not here.” Jane took a deep breath and looked back at the fort, which now seemed like more of a dungeon than anything. Now that she was paying more attention, it seemed rough and ragged. It probably wasn’t well supported at all, and she was certain that at the very least it was covered with splinters. She was certain that the very next time Mateo stepped onto it, the whole thing would fall apart.

“Aw, Mom.” Mateo pouted. “We spent all weekend making it and we made sure it was super safe. Auntia Luisa and Auntia Rose both checked it out before I even got on it! They made super sure it could hold and everything! And look!” He held up his hands, which she could now see were rough and had a few more nicks than they’d had before she left. “They let me help with the sanding and the nails and _everything_! It was so cool!”

Jane could feel the anger bubbling up inside her, and before there was anything to be done, it overflowed. “Mateo, you are _not_ playing on that thing! I’m sure something in it is wrong, and it’ll hurt you! Now go to your room!”

Mateo glared at her. He took a deep breath – they’d made him take some anger management classes since his last tantrums, and she could see him mentally counting to ten – but he still had his father’s anger in him. _Emilio’s_ anger, if Rafael was to be believed, even if they _weren’t_ biologically related. “You never trust me with anything!” Mateo finally yelled, and he stormed off to his bedroom, slamming the door shut behind him.

Jane turned to stare at the tree fort behind her. If she had anything to say about it, that thing was going to come down as soon as Rafael got back. She would try and tear it down now with her bare hands, but she didn’t want to get splinters all in her hands. She’d have to wait until he got back, and then they could go get gloves and leave Mateo with—

Well, obviously they couldn’t leave him alone with Petra and JR anymore. Not if they were going to take him over to Rose. Definitely not. She would have to get Abuela and….

Well, she’d figure something out. She had to. There wasn’t anyone in this family she could trust anymore!


	22. mateo gets a playhouse pt. 2

Three days later, there was a strong knock on Jane’s front door.

As much as she’d wanted to rip the tree fort to shreds, she and Rafael had both been much too tired to do anything of the sort. He’d continued to need to work and been too tired afterwards to help her, and after being gone for so long on her book tour, she was _exhausted_. And yet still the fort loomed in the back of her mind.

She had, of course, forbidden Mateo going out and playing on it. That said, she didn’t expect him to listen to her, and so made sure to spend most of her time in the living room, where she could make sure that he wasn’t going outside onto the death fort.

Now, however, it was the weekend. The weekend meant that Rafael had tomorrow off. Rafael having tomorrow off meant that he would finally be able to help her tear the fort down. And by now she had rested enough to get back her strength. She was sure she’d be able to rip it apart with her bare hands.

Okay, maybe not with her bare hands. Splinters. She would need gloves.

Petra, of course, had not called her back. And she had not called her. She was still made. _Extremely mad._

The knock came again, louder this time, and much more insistent.

“I’m _coming_!” Jane yelled, and she made it to the door, opening it to see none other than the woman of her nightmares – Rose Solano.

_Alver._

Fuck it, she didn’t care if Rose was married to Luisa or not, she was still a Solano and she was going to refer to her that way.

Rafael wouldn’t like that.

_Fine, Rose Alver, then._

Her teeth gritted together, and she stared at Rose. “Get off my property.”

Rose shifted a cardboard box against one hip. She still looked just as tired as she had the last time Jane had seen her, although the bags under her eyes were gone. More importantly, she wasn’t in sweatpants anymore. She was still in a ratty old black t-shirt, but she at least had jeans this time. _And shoes._ Rose pushed a hand across her forehead, brushing a few strands of red hair that had pulled out of the bright blue bandana she was wearing, and sighed. “What, you didn’t like the present I built for you?”

Jane’s eyes narrowed. “Go away, or I’m calling the police.”

“Get a restraining order, see how much Mateo loves you then.”

“ _Rose._ ” Luisa popped her head up over the redhead’s shoulder, and she offered Jane one of those grins she had that always looked so awkward and out of place. It’d been the same one she wore when she told Jane she’d accidentally artificially inseminated her. She met Jane’s eyes, and the smile softened into something that seemed more genuine. “Can we talk?”

“That’s what you’re doing now, isn’t it?” Jane glared at her. “What are you doing here?”

Luisa sighed. “Petra called. She said you were upset. I thought I should come over to explain.”

Jane crossed her arms. “And bring _her_ with you?”

Rose rolled her eyes. “I brought more stuff for the kid. I _told him_ I would,” she continued, holding one hand out, “and you can go through it first and make sure it’s not dangerous or whatever it is you want to do with it.” She sighed and forced the cardboard box into Jane’s arms. Its contents gave a quiet little _thunk_.

Jane didn’t take the box.

“I brought Mia with me,” Luisa said, and as she moved in front of Rose, who was still glaring at Jane for not taking the box, Jane could see the baby in a wrap that held her up against Luisa’s chest. “I thought you would like to see her, at least.”

Jane took a deep breath and nodded. “Fine. You can come in. But _she_ has to stay outside.”

Rose stared at her. “Jane, it’s a hundred degrees outside. I will _burn_ in that car.”

“ _Then burn._ ”

Luisa turned just enough to look at Rose and then patted her shoulder. “It’s okay. You can turn the air conditioning on. You’ll be fine.” Their eyes met, and for a moment, it looked like Rose would say something to try and change her mind, but instead, she took a deep breath, nodded once, and then stole the keys out of Luisa’s back pocket and went back to the car.

Jane watched her as she went and didn’t move from the doorway until she saw the door shut behind her. Then she moved. “Alright,” she said. “You can come in.” She didn’t particularly feel better around Luisa, but she didn’t feel afraid of her. And, of course, there was the baby to consider. She _did_ like babies. Besides, for the most part, Luisa was pretty nonthreatening.

…the reclaiming of the Marbella and kicking Rafael out so long ago notwithstanding.

Luisa strode into the living room and then plopped down on the sofa facing the tree fort. Jane didn’t want to sit next to her, which meant that she had to sit on the other sofa, facing Luisa, with her back to the backyard. She didn’t feel particularly comfortable with that, but what could she do? Luisa was her guest. With a baby. She wasn’t going to make her move.

Wait. This was _her_ house. Of course, she was going to make her—

“I’m sorry for barging in like this,” Luisa said before Jane could say anything. “I know how frustrating it is for us to show up without saying anything, but I thought if we called ahead you would just call the police, and then we – _I_ – wouldn’t get to explain anything at all. I thought you deserved an explanation.” She sighed. “I thought I deserved to be able to explain it to you.”

Jane didn’t think that at all. She leaned back on the sofa and crossed her arms again. “Fine,” she said. “Explain it to me.”


	23. emma and janet have a sit down pt. 1

Janet knew better than to drink caffeine. She knew better than to drink energy drinks. She knew better than to drink anything that would send her heart racing and thus send her electrons vibrating more than normal and make her shock that much harder to control. And yet, here she was, with a mug in her hand, the hot steam rising from within, the rings on her thumb and middle fingers making sharp noises as she tapped them against the ceramic blue exterior.

She didn’t particularly like the blue, but it wasn’t _her_ mug. It was one of Whitney’s. Everything about her was pastels and creams and whites and as brilliant as her mind might be—

Janet stared at one of the empty mugs across from her and zapped it lightly. The mug didn’t shatter immediately, but the shock had just enough force to push it over the edge, where it broke on the tile floor. She should have grinned, but it didn’t make her feel any better. Instead, her brows raised, and she took a sip of her coffee.

Another reason to not drink it – no matter what she did, it always tasted _horrible_.

Rose and Whitney were both of the sort who liked to grind their own beans – Whitney probably started it and Rose followed, or else Rose came already knowing and taught the blonde herself – for a brilliant scientist, it was amazing the things Whitney didn’t know how to do – but if Janet drank coffee at all, she preferred to just throw it in a coffee maker and leave it until it was done. None of that fancy stuff for her, thank you very much. It wasn’t like it actually helped it taste _better_. At least not in any way discernable to her.

Fortunately for her, Emma always – _always_ – started the coffee maker first thing in the morning and again around lunch. The redhead didn’t seem to care if she drank the whole pot herself or if Janet took a cup or two, as long as there was still coffee available to be made when she needed to make it. (There were horrendous arguments when they ran out because _somebody_ – and Janet wasn’t pointing fingers and had absolutely refused to get involved – had run out of their normal beans and stolen from Emma’s supply and thrown her amounts off. There hadn’t been tears because none of them were really that sort (except for Whitney, who could cry on command if she thought it would help her get her way), but there had been…fights. Some rebuilding. No one _died_. That was the important thing. Okay, maybe people _had_ died, but that was what happened when a gang of girl supervillains got mad at each other and needed to take their anger out on something. Some _one_. Whatever.)

At least Whitney was busy. She would have been _more_ than upset about Janet breaking the mug. That, at least, might have made her feel better.

Who was she lying to? That wouldn’t have helped.

Janet sighed and leaned against the stovetop. Before all of this, that would have been impossible. Something in her would have called to the stove’s inner workings and _something_ would have blown up. Or started on fire. Not immediately, maybe, but the longer she stood there and ground herself against it, the more likely it would have been overwhelmed.

She tapped one of her grounding rings against the ceramic mug again. Not anymore.

Janet moved over to one side as Emma entered the room. The redhead glanced at the pieces of the broken mug on the floor. There was never any question of whether or not Janet would clean up her mess – she might, if she felt like it, and she might not, if she wanted to piss Whitney off – and perhaps it was the latter that Emma was trying to avoid as she went to the coffeepot, refilled her mug, and asked, not even looking at Janet, as though it were the simplest thing in the world, “Something _wrong_ , sparky?”

Well. It was a better nickname than _Lint_. Probably because it was more affectionate in nature. Like a pet name.

Only she wasn’t a pet.

Janet settled against the stove and took another sip of her coffee. She grimaced. “This is disgusting.”

“Don’t like it, don’t drink it.” Emma held one hand out, waiting for the mug.

Janet stared at her hand. It still felt like a test. She knew it wasn’t. Instead, she pushed herself off of the stove and strode out of the kitchen. The living area was empty – in most houses, it would be a living room, but for them, it was more of a _break_ room. Communal sort of thing. They were so introverted in nature – and each of their rooms, individual or otherwise, was dedicated to whatever they were focused on in their spare time, _if_ they had spare time – that this room was more for when they had their weekly sit down for that show Whitney was obsessed with.

_Agent Carter._

Propaganda of the highest order or some such.

Didn’t matter, Whitney was _in_ it. Not Whitney herself, of course, because she was supposed to have disappeared many, many years ago, but some actress playing her in a very…biased version of the events Whitney had lived so long ago. Not that Whitney could write them and correct them (she tried). In fact, most of the time she spent the episodes dissecting them and explaining the truth of the matter. It was _important_ to her.

It was, in all honesty, the best part of the week. Janet would sit on one end of the sofa – the one she sat on now – and Rose would sit just close enough that if she spread her arm across the back her fingertips could brush against Janet’s shoulder whenever she wanted. Emma would be on the other sofa, watching Whitney more than she watched the actual show (until Whitney started to look in her direction, and then she would pretend to focus on the show), and Whitney would be sporadic, sitting on the edge of the sofa, sitting on its arm, moving around until finally she would be lying down, staring at the ceiling, with her head in Emma’s lap as Emma slowly massaged her fingers through Whitney’s blonde hair.

That was the way of it.

Emma sat down on the opposite sofa – in her customary spot – her mug of coffee held in both hands as she blew the steam from the top of it. Then she took a sip and leaned back against the cushions, staring at Janet.

Maybe that was enough, for now.

She didn’t have to say anything unless she wanted to.

She didn’t—

“I know you like your zaps, but if you need a good punching bag, there’s one in the garage.” Emma met her eyes. “Just don’t blow it up.”

“No promises.”

“Then don’t use it.”


	24. emma and janet have a sit down pt. 2

“If you don’t want it blown up, don’t offer it.” Janet took another sip of her coffee. It burned her tongue, which fortunately enough actually helped with the whole _horrible taste_ issue. If her tongue was burned, she couldn’t taste it. Then it just felt hot.

Emma stared at her. “You don’t blow up the coffee.”

Janet met her eyes just over the top of her mug. “You don’t _offer_ the coffee.”

“Then you should quit taking it.” Emma held out her hand again, as though to indicate that Janet should hand the mug over, but Janet ignored her.

There was the sound of something _loud_ – a clang of some sort – in the background, followed by an immense silence that with anyone else might have been filled with angry yelling. But Whitney wasn’t like that. Janet knew her well enough to know that she was staring at her invention, not quite _glaring_ at it the way Emma would in such a silence, but considering it, thinking about it, before finally tweaking it. At least, Janet _assumed_ she would tweak it; Whitney often threw her out of her lab whenever she caught her watching. Emma would let her sit and watch. She wasn’t allowed to _touch_ anything (and if there was any sort of electrical issue when she was in Whitney’s lab, it was always her fault, even when it wasn’t), but she could watch. Sometimes Emma even gave her something to do – mostly because Emma knew she wouldn’t screw with her stuff.

Whitney might be loud and obnoxious and _brilliant_ , but for all the horrible things she could most definitely do to Janet, she wasn’t scary. Emma? She could be _terrifying_.

Janet took another sip of her coffee. Then she handed it over. “I don’t know how you drink this stuff.”

“I don’t,” Emma said, pouring what was left in Janet’s mug into her own. “I inhale it.”

“That’s even worse.” Janet leaned against the arm of her couch and stared at the tv. She wouldn’t turn it on; there wouldn’t be anything good right now. A bunch of sitcoms with shitty jokes, maybe the news, which would be a constant slam against the supers they considered villains, like themselves, which meant if she was lucky she could see them talking about her. _Hey, Mom! I’m on tv!_ Only Janet didn’t have a mom to care about that sort of thing.

Not why she was in a bad mood.

Emma reached for the remote and turned the tv on anyway, muting it. She couldn’t hear it half of the time anyway; she just liked the background visual noise. “Was it Whitney this time or Rose?”

“Neither,” Janet said through gritted teeth.

“Rose, then.”

Janet took a deep breath.

“If it’s not Whitney, maybe don’t break her stuff.”

Janet raised her unscarred eyebrow. “I can break whatever I want.”

“Say that again in my lab. I _dare_ you.”

Janet leaned forward, meeting Emma’s eyes. “ _I can break whatever I want._ ”

Emma held Janet’s gaze and took another sip of her coffee. “You don’t have to have sex with her if you don’t want to have sex with her.”

That was the wrong thing to say. All of a sudden, Janet could feel the static moving up and down her skin. It didn’t matter that the rings Emma and Whitney made for her helped ground her; they didn’t stop the static from existing, just from getting out unless she specifically called for it. She _still_ felt it, still felt uncomfortable and on edge, and the caffeine probably didn’t help with this in the slightest.

“You don’t have to tell me that.”

Emma stared at her and smiled. “Your hair is standing on end. Want me to fix it?”

Janet ran a hand along her hair. It was _not_ standing on end. In fact, it shouldn’t be able to do that at all anymore. The grounding rings helped ground her. That meant her hair should be _fine_ when she wasn’t actively electrocuting anything. And it’d been long enough since she shocked and broke the other mug that it should have flattened back down by now. She glared at Emma. “You’re not funny.”

Emma shrugged. “Have you talked to Rose yet?”

“I shouldn’t have to talk to her. It shouldn’t matter.”

“It apparently matters to her.”

Janet leaned back against the sofa, crossing her arms. “I told her she could find someone else. I told her it didn’t matter.”

“You didn’t tell her any of that.”

 _I thought about it_ , Janet thought, although this, too, was a lie. She had thought no such thing. It was impossible to think about bringing it up with Rose at all. For the most part, she stayed in her room – because she had a separate room from Rose, unlike Emma and Whitney, who shared theirs. She thought perhaps it must have been meant this way, for her and Rose to be separate, even though it had seemed to her when she first moved in that their room was meant to be shared.

She’d spent months sharing a space with Rose. A _bigger_ space. She didn’t want to share a room with her now if she didn’t have to. Not because she didn’t like Rose – or _love_ her, although the word made her feel nauseous and sick and more uncomfortable than the little jolts of lightning running under her skin – but because sharing a space…wasn’t right.

Not _not right_ because that sounded like a moral judgment and Janet didn’t care that much but not…not right.

Janet took a deep breath. “Like you and Whitney ever talk about it.”

“We did. Once. We only needed once.” Emma met her eyes. “You have to have the talk or it’s going to be like this forever.”

“No, it won’t.”

That wasn’t the way relationships worked. They weren’t even in a relationship. She didn’t _want_ to be in a relationship.

_She did._

Not with Rose.

_She did._

**She would never admit it to anybody, so don’t you dare ask.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i probably won't be posting more of this one. sorry it's so abrupt.


	25. thunder and lightning

The first sign that there was something wrong was the knocking that came at her door.

Janet wrung her soaking wet hair out over the sink – she’d already toweled off and changed into dry clothes so as to avoid any sudden electrical outburst (she’d made sure to dry her grounding rings off, too, so that she could put them back on and prevent herself from sending any little static into her skin) – this was, of course, her primary weakness, that even though she was immune to her own shock the majority of the time, trying to shock anything while she was wet would just send the shock right back at her. Showers and rain in and of themselves were not a problem; it was standing water, wet skin or wet clothes, or having a bucket dropped on her head when she needed her powers to fight that caused more of an issue.

She’d been planning on curling up on the sofa with a mug of hot chocolate (melted dark chocolate and chocolate milk over the stovetop, now that she could use the stove) while she waited for her hair to drip dry. There shouldn’t even be anyone here. Very few people knew where she lived, and fewer still (read as _no one_ ) wanted to visit her just for the sake of visiting her. Luisa might have, if she knew that she were in town, and Janet might have suffered a visit from her, partly because Luisa made hot chocolate better than she did (she wasn’t sure _how_ , since she followed the same recipe, but somehow she did).

But she hadn’t been in contact with her. Truth be told, Janet didn’t want her to know that she was back. (Problem being that if Luisa was paying attention to the news, she had probably seen her once or twice. But that didn’t mean she knew how to find her – or still had contact with any of the old gang to be able to use them to reach her. She was certain that if Luisa knew she would _want_ to get in touch. Not because they necessarily liked each other. Luisa was just that sort of person.)

The knock came at the door again. Janet contemplated not answering. She didn’t want to answer. Nothing good could come of answering. But she was curious. Out of everyone who knew her and knew she’d returned, who would be at the door? It seemed so out of character for any of them.

So it was curiosity, mainly, that made Janet leave the bathroom, her hair still dripping every now and again, leaving a wet trail down the back of her black sleeveless shirt that was barely distinguishable at all, and make her way to the front door of her apartment. She didn’t even check through the peephole, but, point in her favor, she didn’t unchain her door before opening it. Point _against_ her – that meant that whoever was on the other side could argue their case.

There, on the other side of the door, stood none other than Clara Morrigan, soaking wet, her blond hair plastered to her scalp, rubbing her glasses hopelessly against the wet fabric of her white blouse. Clara looked up as soon as the door started to open, squinted, and then put her glasses back on. There were streaks across the glass; there was no way she could still see well through those.

The chain clacked as it held the door in place, keeping Clara from entering.

“Janet,” Clara breathed out, and she seemed to relax. “I was out and it started storming and I didn’t know where else to turn and I knew you lived nearby and—”

“It’s just rain,” Janet said abruptly. “You can’t handle a little rain?”

Clara stopped, and she smiled, tight-lipped. “It makes me nervous. I don’t know why. I’ve _tried_ to stop it, but something about thunderstorms….” She shrugged. Then she leaned forward. “It’s not the lightning. Or the thunder. I have no problems with whatever it is you play during the rain.”

Janet’s eyes narrowed. “It’s not me. I’m—”

“I know, I know. It’s a joke. A poor one.” Clara glanced down at her frilly white blouse, froze, and then looked back up, pressing her arms together in front of her. “You’re going to let me in, aren’t you?”

Janet’s brows raised. “I hadn’t decided yet. How much are you going to pay me?”

Clara’s eyes narrowed. “I wasn’t planning on paying you anything. We’re friends. Friends don’t pay each other to stay when something’s troubling them.”

“ _Your_ friends, maybe.”

“ _You_ are one of my friends.”

“Says you.”

Clara took a deep breath and then sighed. “How much do you want?”

“How much do you have?” Janet asked with a smile. Her eyes took in Clara’s appearance again. Someone else would probably take her in, if she asked. She had neighbors. Well. She’d had neighbors _once_. They’d all moved out once they saw her on tv. Something about building insurance. The landlords would probably have rather _she_ left instead, but it wasn’t like she’d paid in advance and they would just be breaking contract with her to kick her out. More like she’d bought the whole floor and made sure to tailor it to her specific conventions. They were stuck with her.

Oh well.

“On me?” Clara asked, staring at her. “I don’t make a point of carrying cash with me. National City and muggers, you know. Supergirl doesn’t stop everyone.”

How well Janet knew that. She tapped her fingers on the doorframe. “Phantom usually catches the ones Supergirl misses. Then there’s Guardian – he kind of _specializes_ in muggers. I almost think he’s a normal human – no powers or anything, just armor.” She could take him down easy. He wouldn’t stand a chance against a super or some of the particularly ambitious aliens. No, he just had cool tech. The problem with cool tech was that _most_ of it couldn’t stand a simple jolt. Not these days.

“ _I don’t have cash, Janet._ ” Clara took a deep breath. She hadn’t rubbed her forehead yet. Other than her tone, she didn’t seem exasperated at all. “Are you going to let me in or not?”

Janet sighed. “You haven’t really convinced me.” She pushed a hand through her wet hair – a bad idea, because now her fingers were damp. She dried them on the front of her shirt. “I would guess _not_.” Then she shut the door.

She could hear Clara sigh on the other side immediately, and it brought a smile to her face.

Then she fiddled with the locks and opened the door more fully so that the other woman could come in. “Look,” Janet said, crossing her arms and leaning against the doorframe. “I changed my mind.”


	26. thunder and lightning pt. 2

Janet shut the door and locked it tightly behind Clara as soon as the other woman came inside. Clara stood still just inside of the door frame, pressing her arms together in front of her frilly white blouse, water dripping into little puddles on the floor. “I don’t want to get the rest of your house wet,” she said, staring at Janet. “Do you have a towel or something I can—”

“Don’t.” Janet rubbed a hand across her forehead and then gestured with one hand for Clara to follow her. “Hot shower first. You’re shivering. Towel off after that.” She led Clara to her bathroom. “Clothes here.” She pointed to a little shoot she’d had added to the bathroom – Clara’s soaking wet clothes would make their way from the bathroom directly into the washer. Fortunately, Janet hadn’t started it yet; she needed to get her own soaking wet clothes cleaned, too, if she wanted to wear them again any time soon. “I’ll get you a towel and clothes.” She gave Clara another once over. “I should have something that fits.”

Clara nodded once, staring at her. “Thank you,” she murmured, brushing a hand through her hair and pulling it back dripping. She shivered. “I didn’t realize how cold I was getting.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Janet wasn’t like normal people. Of course, she wasn’t like normal people. She had lightning powers that would electrocute anyone who she touched – in varying degrees, depending on a lot of variables that we don’t have time to get into right now – without warning and without care until such a time as she was given grounding rings, which didn’t stop the electricity that ran under and through and along her skin but simply made it easier for her to control it – and by _control it_ , we mean _stop it_.

But that’s not what I want to mention when I say that Janet wasn’t like normal people.

Perhaps it is better to show you.

Janet waited until she heard Clara’s shower start before she got the towel and added it to the pile of clothes in her arms. She’d taken the time to look through her clothes first – there were a few left over from her time with Rose that she’d kept. Mostly she’d stolen them because they felt like they were more important to her than they would ever be to Luisa, and when Rose hadn’t called or tried to contact her to get them back, it didn’t seem like a good idea to do anything other than keep them.

Especially after Rose…well.

Luisa probably had what was left of her clothes now, if she hadn’t sold it all off. Then again, Luisa didn’t seem like the sort of her person who would be able to get rid of any of Rose’s things so easily after her sudden death. She probably had them in piles or bins or an entire other separate room just dedicated to her – Janet would never have gone that far, but a few things…there were a few things she would have kept.

Which she had, in fact, mostly stolen when she left. That was the point of leaving when Rose and Luisa were out of the house, when Whitney was busy in her lab, and when the only one who would see her was Emma, who understood, who didn’t care, who nodded once and lifted her mug of coffee and said that she hoped Janet would find a life that was better suited for her.

 _It wasn’t about the sex_ was what she wanted to say. But she hadn’t said it. She didn’t think Emma would believe her.

Truth be told, Janet, deep down, didn’t believe herself.

Janet took a few of the clothes that used to be Rose’s – and that still, after all these years, smelled of her, all lavender with a hint of strawberries – and a black towel (because all of her towels were black or gray or, occasionally, a startling blue, although those weren’t for guests and sometimes she wasn’t sure why she even _had_ those) and moved into the bathroom while Clara was still in the shower.

Now, of note, Janet’s shower curtain wasn’t particularly thick. It did what it needed to do – which was keep the water from getting outside of the shower all over the floor, which would be even more detrimental to her than to most people, as she didn’t shower with her grounding rings on and a standing pool of water would be a health hazard, given that her particular charge would return shortly after her shower and standing in a puddle with nothing to keep it from coming out would end up shocking _her_ —

Which was really to say that Janet’s shower curtain didn’t leave much to the imagination where Clara was concerned.

You would perhaps expect Janet to stand and glance and think about this, to take advantage of the moment to look at form much more specifically.

But she didn’t.

In fact, the thought didn’t even cross Janet’s mind. If anything, she didn’t even notice that she could tell anything at all, instead just taking the clothes and the towel and setting them on the counter and leaving without a second thought. The steam felt nice. Good thing the hot water had returned enough from her _own_ shower. Etc.

Then she went into the kitchen and started the hot chocolate she’d been meaning to make before Clara arrived. Of course, Janet _did_ make more than she originally meant to make because as much as she _could_ be rude and not offer any to Clara…they _did_ work together. And she didn’t hate her. Most of the time.

And also if word got back to Rhea that she’d been rude to her daughter, then she could expect a little bit of familial…retribution. And as much as Janet did not always like Clara, she _owed_ Rhea. As far as Janet was concerned, the woman saved her life. She wouldn’t call it that (and Rhea, although knowing it, wouldn’t either unless she absolutely had to do so), but it was still true.

So she had to be passably nice to Clara most of the time.

Not all of the time.

But it certainly meant that when Clara got out of the shower in clothes that made her look like a blonde version of Rose – albeit thinner, more angled, and of course there was that height thing that no one could really do anything about – Janet couldn’t look at her and think _Rose_ , she had to look at her and play nice for long enough that looking away didn’t seem _rude_.

Clara was not a fan of rude.


	27. thunder and lightning pt. 3

Clara brushed a hand through her short blonde hair, pushing it back behind one ear. There was a towel draped around her shoulders, to catch any dripping from the ends of her hair, to keep it from getting through the thin blouse she now wore. It was a little too big for her – whoever it belonged to, and she was certain it wasn’t Janet, had to have been a bit taller than she was because even the pants were a little too long; she’d rolled them up so that the ends didn’t drag along the ground. She straightened her glasses just so and then smiled. “Thank you,” she said, walking into the kitchen. “You didn’t have to do that.”

Janet shrugged. “You’re right. I didn’t.” She continued to stir the pot over the stove then pulled the wooden spoon out of the pot, sipped some of the hot chocolate off of it, and then nodded once. “Mugs are in the left cabinet. Get them out.”

Clara did as she said. Inside the cabinet were only two mugs – a grey one and a black one – and she pulled them both out, staring at them. “No color?”

“Color was always Whitney’s thing.” Janet took one of the mugs and slowly filled it. “Or Luisa’s.” She passed the mug over to Clara and took the other one. “Emma and I were more greyscale. And Rose….” She pressed her lips together and shook her head. “You wouldn’t have wanted to meet Rose.”

Clara took her mug and curled up on one end of Janet’s couch. “What was she like?” she asked, her head tilting to one side. “She and Rhea—” She sighed. “She and _Mom_ didn’t get along. I was too young to learn why, and Mom’s never felt the need to explain any of it to me. It didn’t matter. I never wanted to meet her. But I’ve heard so much—”

“You wouldn’t have wanted to meet her,” Janet repeated. She didn’t move out of the kitchen, instead cradling her mug in her hands and staring at it. “You might have liked her. It was worse that way.”

“Worse?”

Janet shrugged again. “You’ve met me. Whitney. Emma.” She glanced past Clara at the window lining the back wall. “You’ve never met Luisa.”

“No.”

“Looks just like me, except for this.” Janet tapped the scar on her left eye. Luisa didn’t have any powers or any complications. Of course, Rose had liked her better. _Of course._ Not that it had helped them out any. “You’ve never met anyone like her. Or Rose.” Her eyes lit up as she met Clara’s eyes. “Rose was a lot like Rhea. She brought us together. We weren’t anything without Rose.”

Clara’s eyes narrowed. “You’re together now.”

“I wouldn’t call us _together_. We just work at the same job. Different parts of it. We’re not what we once were.” Janet took a sip of her hot chocolate and moved to the couch, sitting on the opposite end, as far away from Clara as she could. “You’re welcome.”

“I already said thank you.”

Janet nodded. “You were there when Rhea fixed me up, after this.”

“Rose was, too.”

Janet shook her head. “ _Whitney_ was. You just said you never met Rose.”

“I said I never _wanted_ to meet Rose. I didn’t say I never met her.” Clara focused on the hot chocolate in her mug. “I don’t remember much about that.”

It was a lie. Janet could hear the lie in her voice. She wasn’t going to call her out on it, but she could hear it. “Let’s not talk about that,” she said, taking another sip of her hot chocolate. “I don’t like to talk about Rose. That was a long time ago.”

“Three years.”

“ _Longer_ ,” Janet corrected. Her fingers tapped against her mug, the grounding rings making a clicking noise as she did so. “I left before she died.” She settled against the couch. “Let’s not talk about that. I don’t like to talk about Rose,” she repeated.

“You don’t like to talk about much.”

“There’s nothing good to talk about.”

Clara frowned. “Where did you get these clothes?” she asked. “They don’t look like anything of yours.”

“They’re not.” Janet looked up just enough to meet Clara’s eyes again and then looked elsewhere. She wasn’t comfortable. She didn’t feel comfortable around people very often in general, so this wasn’t a particularly new thing for her, but there was something about Clara that consistently got under her skin. She couldn’t say just why. “It doesn’t matter.”

“You put me in your ex’s clothes?” Clara asked, and her eyes widened before lighting up. She grinned, her eyes moving up and down Janet’s form. “ _Naughty_ , Janet. Very naughty.”

Janet took a deep breath and then looked up. “You wouldn’t fit in my clothes. They’d be—”

“Too big?” Clara asked, and she waved one of her arms, the end of the shirt going long enough that it flopped just there. “Bigger than this?”

“You look good in that. You wouldn’t look good in any of my clothes.”

“ _C’mon_ ,” Clara needled, scooting a little closer to her. “Tell me you don’t want to see me in your clothes.”

Janet looked straight at Clara, holding her gaze. “I don’t want to see you in my clothes.”

Clara frowned. “Well, that’s unfortunate. I’d _love_ to see you in mine.”

This. This was it. This was why Janet didn’t like spending time with Clara. She was as bad as Rose used to be. At least Rose had a little class. Clara was just—

“Janet.” Clara reached one hand out just far enough to brush her fingertips along Janet’s arm, stopping before she so much as touched her. Janet was grateful for that, at least. She hated to be touched. “You know I’m teasing. Mostly.”

“I don’t like the joke.”

Clara sighed. “Do you want me to stop?”

Janet didn’t want to think about that. She didn’t want to think about that at all.


	28. longbourne

Sometimes she opens her eyes and she forgets where she is.

She looks up at the wooden log ceiling and blinks a few times and looks out the window and sees the lake so close that all she has to do is walk out the back door and down to it to be there and looks at the trees and the clouds and all that pine and she thinks she must have died and woken up somewhere else. She wouldn’t call it heaven. She wouldn’t call it hell. She wouldn’t know what to call it.

Then she remembers.

She takes a deep breath and stares at the ceiling again and feels the ache in her chest like breathing and beating and there’s a cliché about having a bird as her heart and her ribs as its cage and it just wants to break free and that’s a kind of death, too. She gives her heart away and buries it in other people’s ribs and they keep it kept tight in there, so tight it breaks its wings. Maybe her ribs aren’t a cage at all. Maybe the bird of her heart has had its wings clipped. Birds are supposed to fly. Doesn’t matter if it’s a cage or clipping that keeps them tied down. Except if a bird without clipped wings makes its way out of a cage, it can still fly.

This is too much thinking. She doesn’t want to think anymore.

She props herself up on her elbows and forces herself to sit up just enough to see the opposite corner of her bedroom, where there should be a door, and there should be someone standing in that door with a bright smile and frizzy hair just long enough to brush against her shoulders, just watching her, and she would have a tray of breakfast that she did _not_ make because she could _not_ cook – and she probably wouldn’t even have a tray because that’s too fancy and she probably wouldn’t even have any food at all. In reality, she would mention being hungry, and then she would have to get out of bed and they would cook together – which really looked more like _her_ cooking and _her_ watching and occasionally asking questions or making remarks or throwing flour in her face when really she was supposed to be making bread or pancakes or waffles or brownie versions of any of the above – brownie bread the least of those but it worked – _sometimes_ – and half of the time they would end up with burned food because they had been distracted with each other and—

There is no door, and there is no one standing there, and there is no woman with frizzy hair just long enough to brush her shoulders, and there is no one watching her, and she feels so alone.

She’s so tired.

She collapses back against the bed and stares at the ceiling again and wonders if she paints it a bright sunshiny blue and then covers the ceiling with those glow-in-the-dark stars she would like it better.

She wonders if she will ever wake up here and not wonder how she got here.

She doubts it.

It might have been easier to take her mother’s route to get here – to jump off a bridge and hit her head hard enough that she forgets and then come here having forgotten everything. The only things she would know for sure is her life here and her life in whatever hospital she was in and maybe her name, maybe only her first name. That must have been how it worked.

Why hadn’t her mom tried to look for herself? If she couldn’t remember anything, why didn’t she find a computer somewhere and look herself up? (It was the 80’s, she reminds herself. Computers weren’t a thing then like they are now. She couldn’t just look herself up.)

If she woke up with no memories of herself or who she was, she’d use the internet. She’d find out a lot of things about herself that she wouldn’t want to know because that’s what the internet is good for – reminding you of your worst case scenarios and keeping your best case scenarios hidden from journals and journalists and journalism – and she thinks if she couldn’t remember who she was and she looked herself up and she read all of that she’d hide herself away, too. No one who knew her like that could want her back.

And the funny, ironic part of that is that her memoryless self would be right. They _don’t_ want her back. They wouldn’t look for her. They _haven’t_ looked for her.

~~She thinks of the woman in the corner in the doorway that doesn’t exist and maybe if she wasn’t in jail she would look. Maybe she’s already looking. Maybe she’s not looking because she already knows where she is. They know each other that well.~~

~~Would she know where she was if she disappeared without warning? She hadn’t before. Would she know now?~~

She stares at the ceiling and she takes a deep breath. She has a job now. She’s _good_ at that job. She hasn’t been making mistakes. She hasn’t had anyone trying to convince her that—

_She isn’t thinking about the woman she couldn’t see. The one who didn’t exist._

It’s hard enough not to think about the woman who _does_. She can do without thinking about those who don’t.

She stares at the ceiling and she props herself up with her elbows again and she pushes herself into a sitting position and she leans forward and she takes another breath and it’s another breath and another breath and another one before she pushes herself out of bed.

She tells herself she likes it here because she does. It’s calm. It’s quiet. She doesn’t have to worry about being found because no one really cares about her anyway.

She doesn’t have to fool herself here.

Sometimes she thinks she should have stayed on the island.

Sometimes she thinks her family will love her again.

Sometimes she doesn’t think about any of them at all.


	29. mateo gets a playhouse pt. 3

Mia nestled closer against Luisa’s chest as she talked. She liked to think she was explaining things, but it felt like Jane wasn’t even listening to her. So instead, it ended up feeling like she was talking to empty air, talking just to hear herself talk, or talking to some imaginary person who wasn’t really there to begin with.

Scratch that. Talking to Jane didn’t feel like talking to Carla at all. Carla had actually listened and talked with her and provided her with another source of conversation. Jane just sat on her high throne and passed judgment. Not even _right_ judgment.

 _Then again_ , if someone had kidnapped Mia within only a few hours of her birth, there wasn’t much that could have been done to make her like them again, no matter what their relation to Rafael or Rose or anyone else in their family. That said, if someone _had_ tried to steal Mia, she wouldn’t have had to worry about it. Rose would have found them. _Rose would have killed them._ Then she probably would have had to worry about it. More like she would have to worry about Rose in jail.

—which maybe explained why _Rafael_ hated Rose so much.

Maybe it was a good thing that Rose had stayed in the car.

Actually, Luisa would probably have forgiven them at some point. That was just the sort of person she was. She’d forgiven Rafael for lying about her inheritance (Rose hadn’t). She’d forgiven him for throwing Rose in jail (Rose hadn’t). She’d forgiven him for lying to her about his—

Okay, that one _still_ bothered her. A lot. But she forgave him a lot of things and she _had_ forgiven him that, even if it still bothered her. She wasn’t going to bring it up (Rose probably would).

“So what you’re saying,” Jane finally said, when Luisa had said all she could say – okay, not _all_ she could say but there was a certain point in which talking to a stone wall felt a little useless, “is that you would have come up this weekend anyway. That it’s _our fault_ for not being home to stop you.”

Luisa sighed. “No.” That wasn’t what she said at all. “It’s not anyone’s fault for not being here.” She bit her lower lip. “I _told_ her we should have just left.”

“Then why didn’t you?” Jane asked, her eyes narrowing. “You knew we wouldn’t want Rose—”

“ _Petra said it was fine!_ ” Luisa tried to keep her voice down. She didn’t do a great job of it because Mia scrunched up her face and squirmed in her arms before settling again. It was instinct by now to brush a hand through Mia’s hair. Where it had been brown before, when Jane had visited, it had started to brighten up again and return to the red it had been when she was first born. She really _was_ Rose’s daughter just as much as she was hers, and Luisa couldn’t help but be happy that their daughter had taken Rose’s hair. And her freckles. She _loved_ her freckles.

Mia relaxed her more than Rose did anymore. Not that Rose _didn’t_. Just that Mia was so much better at it.

Luisa took a deep breath and met Jane’s eyes. “You haven’t been around Petra and Rose together. It’s kind of impossible to tell them no. It’s _worse_ when JR wants to—”

“It shouldn’t matter what anyone else says or anyone else thinks! You shouldn’t be making modifications to our house or our yard without our permission!”

There was movement in the backyard. Luisa glanced over Jane’s shoulder – past her – to where she could see Rose climbing onto the huge tree fortress. Yeah, that was great, Rose. You were _supposed_ to stay in the car. Why she thought that she would stay there—

“Luisa?” Jane started to glance over her shoulder. “What are you—?”

“Nothing!” Luisa raised one hand and waved it. Rose made it behind one of the tree fort’s walls with her box full of stuff for Mateo before Jane could see anything. “There’s nothing. There was a squirrel. I’m easily distractible. That’s all.” She grinned as Jane turned to face her again. “And you’re right. We shouldn’t have.”

 _But she would have been fine if Petra had—_ she could hear Rose start to say in her head.

And the thing was that Rose was right.

She didn’t want to say it. She didn’t want the argument. She didn’t want to be pushing what she knew against what Jane wanted, especially in the comfort of her own house.

But she _had_ been learning assertiveness from Petra and from JR and even a little bit from Rose (although she listened less to Rose because most of her suggestions ended up being, _You should kill them_ , with a little wink and a little smile and her tongue sticking out just over one of her canines as though she were an anime character and half of the time Rose wasn’t being serious) so she said it.

She did.

She regretted it as soon as she said it but she said it anyway.

“If Petra said she’d gotten personal construction workers to build it for you, you wouldn’t have minded.”

Jane’s eyes widened. “What did you say?”

Luisa winced. But she repeated it again anyway. “If Petra said she’d gotten personal construction workers to build it for you, you wouldn’t—”

“But she _didn’t_ get personal—” Jane spluttered. “She didn’t—” Her eyes narrowed. “It doesn’t matter because that’s not what happened at all.”

Luisa’s eyes flicked over to where Rose was glancing through one of the tree fort windows at her. Her face contorted into one of concern, and Luisa tried to give her a little smile. She couldn’t give her a thumbs up or Jane would see that.

Then Rose’s eyes widened, and Mateo came sprinting over the fence into his backyard, jumping up the tree fort, and toppling into Rose’s arms.

“What was that?” Jane asked, and in the few seconds it took for her to turn and face her, Rose had moved both herself and Mateo out of view of her window. Jane saw nothing. There was nothing there. Nothing for her to see anyway. She sighed and turned back. “I thought I heard something.”

“Here.” Luisa moved over to where Jane was sitting – because it would be easier to not react to Rose and Mateo if she couldn’t see them – and held Mia out to her. “Would you like to meet her?” she asked. “You didn’t really get to see her much when you came to visit us.”

Jane looked at Luisa, almost as though she were avoiding Mia. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?” Luisa asked. It didn’t seem like such a bad idea to her.

Jane opened her mouth as though to say something and then shook her head. “Never mind. I’d love to see her.”


	30. mateo gets a playhouse pt. 4

“Auntia Rose! You came back!”

Rose glanced over her shoulder towards the glass back door. Luisa was being a good distraction – _Luisa was_ always _a good distraction_ ; shame there wasn’t anyone around to hear that – and Jane still hadn’t noticed her. _Phew._ Not that she was really worried about Jane noticing her. It wasn’t like Jane could really do anything to her that she hadn’t tried before. She turned back to Mateo and placed a finger over her lips, and Mateo’s eyes grew wide. He nodded, placing a finger over his own lips, and sat cross-legged on the wooden floor across from her. Then she grinned. “Hey, kid. How was school?”

“ _Boring_ ,” Mateo said, his voice ten times lower than it was before, almost a whisper. He groaned. “Teachers don’t like me swinging my legs or drawing stick figures all over my homework. The clock’s loud and keeps distracting me. The stories all sound the same. I talk too much.” He shrugged. “I didn’t get detention this week, though!”

Mateo was cute when he grinned. Even if he was Jane and Rafael’s spawn. Good kids could come from bad parents. (She gave Petra more credit for this than anything. Luisa might say that was undeserved. Rose thought it wasn’t.)

Rose reached over and ruffled Mateo’s head. “That’s great.” She leaned forward. “Did you try any of those techniques I taught you this weekend?”

Mateo nodded again. “Yeah! They helped a lot!” Then his eyes grew brighter. “What’s that?” he asked, seeing the box she’d brought up into the tree fort. “More presents?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Rose said, her voice quiet, and she held a finger up to her lips again. “I know it’s hard, but we don’t want your mommy finding out I’m up here.”

“ _Oh._ Like a secret mission!” Mateo grinned again. “Like you used to do when you were a super criminal!”

Rose nodded, grinning. “Exactly. Do you want to be a super criminal, Mateo?”

Mateo giggled. It was cute. Rose wasn’t a fan of kids, but there was something _entertaining_ about being friends with the baby boy she’d kidnapped. Especially considering his mother still _hated_ her. It was a little bit nicer than killing someone.

No, on second thought, it really wasn’t. There wasn’t much nicer than killing someone.

Not that she got to do _that_ anymore.

This was really the best she had.

(Other than Luisa, but that was an entire different level of— She wasn’t going to go there.)

“I don’t think Mommy would be happy if I was a super criminal, though.” Mateo’s brow furrowed, and he frowned. He stuck his tongue into his right cheek pocket, pushing it there. Then he turned back to the box. “What did you bring me? Did you bring me a knife? I did _really good_ this week.”

“No, no knife this time.” Rose still had her own knife on her, but she wasn’t going to tell the kid that. Or Jane. _Or Luisa._ She wasn’t supposed to be keeping a weapon on her at all, but it wasn’t mainly for that. Weapons were good for self-protection if she needed it, and she wasn’t going to leave herself unprepared while with her wife and daughter. But, more importantly, the knife gave her something to do when she was bored. She had little bits of wood hidden in the car in various states of finished – because sometimes she wasn’t able to focus on one long enough to finish it, sometimes she was distracted with a new idea, sometimes she just wanted to return to one she’d already started and do a bit more work on it. Luisa didn’t like the wood shavings in the car, but it was better than a lot of the other options. Besides, Rose tried to vacuum the car every now and again. It wasn’t like she had a lot else to do – especially before Mia was born. She loved Luisa, but when her wife was at work and she was by herself with nothing to do, she had a penchant to get bored.

“Awwwwwww.” Mateo pouted. “Why didn’t you bring me a knife like yours?”

Okay, given, Mateo _had_ seen Rose’s knife over the weekend. She’d used it for little projects on the tree fort – a lot of the turret tips on the smaller pieces she’d whittled and then handed to him to sand down (Mateo _had_ helped build the fort, but most of that had been _sanding_ and telling her how he wanted it to look, improvising on the design she’d brought with her. Luisa hadn’t wanted him to handle any tools, and although Rose had gotten around that by letting him handle a few screws, they’d been _very careful_ with him) – and while he’d asked for one then, she’d assured him that she’d try and get one for him later.

“I don’t think you’re ready for one yet,” Rose said, reaching over and ruffling his dark hair. Not that she cared how Jane would respond if Mateo had a knife – and not that she cared how much Mateo might hurt himself with a knife – but that she cared how upset Luisa would be with her if Jane refused to see them again because of the knife (and Luisa would also probably not be happy with her if Mateo hurt himself either, but that was another conversation that really had more to do with _how you take care of yourself while using a knife_ , which Rose would be more than happy to have with him when he was old enough to have it – although she was sure that Mateo would listen to her in bits and pieces now, just like she’d listened to her dad when he explained it to her, the problem just was that there was no assurance she would have the same amount of time with him that she’d had with her dad. _Not that she cared_ ).

“When am I gonna be ready?” Mateo asked, his eyes wide. “Do you think Mommy would let me have one?”

Rose met his eyes and leaned forward. “Do you really think that your mom’s going to let you have a knife to play with?”

Mateo pouted. “No.”

“Exactly.” Rose reached over and tapped his nose. “So don’t tell her about it. Don’t tell her I’m planning on getting you one. If you do, she won’t let me.”

Mateo scowled. Then he turned to the box again. “So _what did you get me_?”

Rose glanced over her shoulder again, checking to make sure that Jane was still distracted. It looked like she was. She took a deep breath. “Well, kid….”


	31. roisa high school fake dating au pt. 4

Clara hesitated before saying anything. Not! Because she was _scared_ or anything, because she wasn’t scared. She didn’t _get_ scared. Just embarrassed. Mostly embarrassed. And she wanted Luisa to like her, which meant she had to be cognizant of what she was saying and how she replied. _And_ despite the fact that this was truth or dare, there were certain things she didn’t want to answer. Not yet anyway.

Like her first kiss. She hoped Luisa didn’t ask about that.

But, despite all of that, Clara took a deep breath and said, finally, “Truth.”

“Chicken.” Luisa stuck her tongue out at her.

“Am not!” Clara exclaimed. “Only truth was the thing I wanted us to do, which was the talking about ourselves. It seemed more cowardly to pick dare.” She met Luisa’s eyes and grinned at her, heart thudding wildly in her chest. “But if you want me to change my mind—”

“Nope, nope, no take-backs, you’re stuck with a truth now.” Luisa grinned and leaned back on her palms, staring up at her ceiling, still studded with glow in the dark stars. “I just have to think of a good one.”

Clara frowned. “You didn’t have one ready?”

Luisa shrugged. “Most of my friends pick dare. Or we play spin the bottle. And I like spin the bottle, but—”

“It’d be a little weird with only two of us in here, right?” Clara blurted out all of a sudden. She flushed wildly. “But I guess, if I’m supposed to be your girlfriend, then it wouldn’t be too weird.”

Luisa watched her, and then a grin slowly spread across her face.

Clara winced. “What?”

“I figured out my question.”

“Yeah, well, then ask it then.” Clara stared at her, waiting, her stomach tightening. She felt sick. Not afraid, because she _wasn’t_ afraid. Just sick.

“Truth – do you want to kiss me?”

Clara’s eyes widened, and she looked away immediately. She bit her lower lip. Her heart was beating really fast. She didn’t like this. “That’s not the kind of question you ask if you’re just talking.”

Luisa frowned. “Well, we’re not _just talking_. We’re playing truth or dare. And it’s definitely the kind of question you ask in truth or dare.”

“I wanted us to just be talking.” Clara wouldn’t turn back to look at her. “You’re the one who wanted us to play a game.”

“And you agreed to it.” Luisa reached out and touched Clara’s shoulder ever so gently.

Clara jumped at her touch. “What was that for?”

“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to,” Luisa said, “and we don’t have to keep playing. Besides, I already know you’re going to say yes. _Everyone_ wants to kiss me.”

Clara’s eyes narrowed. “If you already thought you knew the answer, then why did you ask?”

Luisa grinned. “I wanted to hear you say it.”

“Oh.” Clara brushed a hand through her frizzy red hair, pushing it back behind one ear, and she finally looked at Luisa. Or, she tried to, but her eyes kept drifting to her lips and even when she tried to _not_ look at them, her gaze only moved to the strands of hair that had pulled loose of her half-ponytail, the ones she wanted to tuck back behind Luisa’s ear. She bit her lower lip again. “Yeah,” she said, finally, her voice soft. She met Luisa’s hazel eyes briefly, and they twinkled with green and gold flecks. Then she looked away again. “Yeah, I…I’d like to….” Her face blushed a bright scarlet, so bright that she could feel the blood rising hot in her cheeks. She pressed her lips together. “I’ve thought about it, I mean, so yeah. Yes. Yeah.”

When she looked up again, Luisa was grinning, smug. “Alright then. I’ll keep that in mind.” She nudged her knee with her hand. “Your turn.”

Clara nodded, still blushing furiously. “Truth or Dare.” She already knew what she wanted to ask, even though it wasn’t what she’d been planning on before. But if Luisa could ask _her_ that sort of question, then she wanted to ask it back. It was only fair!

Only the more that she thought about it, the more Clara realized that she really _didn’t_ want Luisa to answer that question. What if the answer was no? She didn’t want to know. She really didn’t. So maybe she wouldn’t ask.

“ _Dare_ ,” Luisa said, grinning at her.

Clara’s eyes widened again. “I told you that was the coward way!”

“Yeah, well, I told you that’s what my friends and I like to pick!”

Clara frowned. “You just wanted to play the game so you could get out of talking to me about stuff.” She crossed her arms. “That’s not very fair, Luisa.”

“I can change it, if you want.”

“No, no. You said no take backs. You’re stuck with a dare now.” Not that Clara was very happy about it. She had so many questions she wanted to ask the other girl. And what sort of dare was she supposed to come up with? She knew the sort that someone else might have picked, but that wasn’t the kind of person she was. She knew what that felt like. She didn’t want to— No. “I dare you to pick truth next time.”

Luisa’s mouth dropped open. “Now _that’s_ not fair.”

“All’s fair in truth or dare,” Clara said, meeting her eyes and holding her gaze. “So next time you’ve got to pick truth.”

“ _Fine._ ” Luisa’s eyes narrowed into what was almost a glare. “Truth or Dare, Clara Ruvelle.”

“Dare,” Clara said, staring at her.

“No take backs,” Luisa reminded her.

“Yeah, well, what sort of thing are you going to dare me to do?” Clara asked, staring at her. “You don’t want truths from me, so. You like this better, don’t you?”

Luisa nodded. She licked her lips once, looked over Clara again, and then said, finally, “If you don’t like this one, you can change it, alright?”

Clara blinked a couple of times. That seemed off. Odd. _Both._ Luisa didn’t seem like the sort of person who would give loopholes and ways around her dares. “Alright,” she said, hesitating, tentative. “What is it?”

“I dare you to kiss me,” Luisa said, and her eyes met Clara’s, searching them.

Oh.

_Oh._


	32. roisa high school fake dating au pt. 5

_“I dare you to kiss me.”_

It wasn’t as though Luisa hadn’t said those words a bunch of times during games of Truth or Dare. She had. A lot. _A lot_ a lot. Not always with pleasant results. Sometimes people would get around it by kissing her cheek or her forehead or her hand or something like that. Never her wrist, which she thought would be super cool. Once her neck – which was admittedly a lot nicer than she thought it would be – but that was because it was a Halloween party and the girl was dressed up like a vampire (which was really hot) and it was on brand or _whatever_.

Of course, she had also been dared to kiss people fairly often, too. Usually boys. She hated that. She hated that someone would dare her to kiss a boy. Usually it wasn’t the guy who dared her to kiss him but one of his friends or something like that. And while yeah, sure, of course a guy was going to think she was attractive and want to kiss her, it would be really nice if they realized that she didn’t want to kiss them. Most of the time she found a way to loophole around that. Then a guy turned so that when she was blatantly trying to kiss his cheek she ended up kissing him instead.

Boys were gross and now she only played Truth or Dare with girls. With her friends. Or with guys that she _knew_ weren’t going to dare her to kiss them. Which was rare enough that for the most part she just didn’t play with guys. At least she respected other people’s boundaries. She wasn’t going to dare a straight girl to kiss her. Most of the time. (Although, admittedly, guys would do that, too. More reason to not play with guys. Ugh.)

And there was that time with Caroline because she was pretty sure that she had a crush on her, too, and that kind of blew up in her face.

_Sweet Caroline. BA BA BA._

But she hadn’t done it after that. That was a bad idea. Caroline had been mad at her for weeks. It wasn’t like there had been rumors or anything. It was just Luisa. _Everyone_ wanted to kiss Luisa or wanted someone to kiss her or whatever. Something like that. Still.

 _But_ , since Clara had admitted that she’d been thinking about kissing her – which had been really, really cute, the way she hadn’t been able to look at her and the way she’d blushed so red that her freckles seemed to fade and the way even when she _had_ looked at her she hadn’t been able to keep from looking at her lips – look. If it was just general curiosity, then she was fine with Clara kissing her. And the way Clara had blurted out very quickly that she was very definitely into girls—

 _And she’d already kissed someone_ , which was a plus. Luisa was tired of being every lesbian around the school’s first kiss just because she was the one everyone knew, just because she was the one who was out and _loud_ about being out. And then getting left high and dry because now that they were comfortable with themselves they could go be with the girl they _really_ liked. It was a little like being the school whore who everyone knew they could sleep with to lose their virginity and then yay they were an adult now whoop de freaking do.

Not really the same because kissing and sex weren’t the same. No. Ew. And she didn’t—

 _No._ She _hadn’t_. Not that she hadn’t, you know, thought about it. But she didn’t like anyone at school enough for that. Besides, there were statistics involved with relationships in high school and how long those lasted and maybe she’d find her soulmate or whatever – and maybe you could have sex with someone without that and maybe in the future she’d be like that – but. Call her old fashioned, she wanted to wait for someone she was in love with.

And also to not be living with her dad or her brother because _gross_? At least in college she would have her own dorm room. Okay, maybe she’d have a roommate, but they could schedule not being in there at the same time. Or, you know, she’d be really cool and date an older girl who lived off campus and had her own apartment and then they could just, you know, _her place_.

Didn’t matter, wasn’t part of the equation, why was she thinking about this?

She wasn’t.

She was thinking about Clara, who she actually kind of liked and who was really cute, who was sitting just next to her, so close that they were touching, who she’d dared to kiss her, and who she’d also told didn’t have to if she didn’t want to. Well, she _did_ want to, they’d clarified that already. But if she didn’t want to _like this_ or _right now_ or _because of a dare_ or something like that. Dares were just a good way to break the tension.

Clara wasn’t looking at her. She was very still and had gone very white, instead of very red, which made each of the freckles on her face stand out like a constellation. Her hair was frizzy and red and Luisa thought maybe if she got really anxious it would all stand on end like a cat’s would. It wasn’t doing that now. And that wasn’t…that wasn’t a thing that people’s hair really did. She just thought it would be cute.

“Clara?” she asked, staring at her, watching her. “You don’t have to, you know. I told you you didn’t.”

Clara shook her head. “No take backs.”

Luisa smiled, but it was a soft thing, as soft as she could manage. “I could dare you to do something else. I don’t want to make you do something uncomfortable, if it makes you uncomfortable. I just thought—”

“No, it’s…it’s okay.” Clara looked up and met Luisa’s eyes and then bit her lower lip. Her gaze flicked to Luisa’s lips again. “If your dad walked in…that would just be like pretending we were girlfriends, yeah? So it’s good practice?”

That wasn’t why Luisa had dared her to kiss her. That wasn’t why she’d dared her to do that at all. “Yeah,” she said, disappointed. “It’s good practice.”

“So I should just—”

Clara leaned forward and all at once she kissed her.

Sort of.

Luisa wouldn’t even really call that a kiss. It was far too quick and far too short and far too chaste and more of a peck really but it was something. It was a start.

“Is that really what you wanted to do?” Luisa asked.

Clara shook her head. “No,” she admitted, and then her eyes went wide. “But I’m not going to say anymore because it’s _your_ turn. Truth or Dare.”

Oh. Well. Okay. Luisa sighed. “Dare,” she said again, hoping.

“Coward.”

Luisa shrugged. “I like dares better than truths. It’s a natural thing. I can change it if—”

“I dare _you_ to kiss _me_.” Clara met Luisa’s eyes, fierce and determined. She took a deep breath then nodded, as though assuring herself that’s really what she wanted. “I dare you to kiss me.”

_Finally._


	33. submarine sketch pt. 1

Sometimes Rose thinks she’s never felt as tired as she does right now. Whatever it was that has been keeping her going for the past five – no, _six_ – years faded just as soon as she reached here and could yell _base_ with one hand keeping her safe, and the exhaustion of running, running, running for so long set into her bones. She hadn’t been exactly flying all of those years; she’d needed Luisa more than she could’ve said, needed her to tether her to herself, needed her not to give a final goal post – she had always had that, just shifted it ever so slightly – or a reason to reach that post – she had chosen it herself, had worked towards it for so many years – but the same way a prisoner in dodgeball needed someone to run across the field without getting hit and let them out again.

She hadn’t told her that, though. She wasn’t sure how to put it into words.

The worst of it was being on this submarine. It was, of course, a great place to hide, given that they could be anywhere under the sea ( _darling, it’s better down where it’s wetter – take it from me_ , as if she didn’t know that, as if she hadn’t preferred those intimate parts of her lovers, as if it was really all about _the sea_ at all), but the problem was—

She was having trouble sleeping.

The gentle rocking of the waves against the submarine, its semi-constant creaking and groaning, the little noises of a machine living and breathing were cold and death to someone who had trained herself to snap awake at the slightest sound because just that little creak, that little noise could be someone creeping into her bedroom at a word from one of her many, _many_ enemies who had finally figured out who she was (or had been handpicked by Elena, who had always known) to destroy her. Even as a child, Clara had had trouble sleeping. Sometimes she’d woken up somewhere completely different from where she’d fallen asleep, rubbing her eyes and yawning and _why was she standing in front of the fridge, holding it open?_ Of course, in that scenario, she’d gotten herself a sandwich and a glass of warm milk, eaten, and then tried to go back to sleep, but in others, she’d been less fortunate. And then, after her mother left, she’d wanted to stay with her father to make sure that _he_ wouldn’t leave her and found herself kicked and punched out of his bed in his drunken stupor, and then tired, and sore, and bruised, she would curl up on the cold, hard floor with the pillow and blanket she’d taken from her room only to be kicked away again when her father woke and didn’t feel like picking her up by the scruff of her neck to move her out of his way.

One would think that this would deter her from using a submarine to hide at all – why would someone so clearly exhausted and so desperately in need of a relaxing place to lay down and rest pick something that would prevent them from doing so and just grow more and more tired?

One word: Luisa Alver.

Admittedly, that’s really _two_ words, but it’s one person, which is the important thing.

Rose stares at the woman curled up in bed next to her. Luisa’s eyes are closed, and her mouth is open the slightest bit. She won’t say it because she refuses to believe it when Rose tells her, but she’s snoring. It’s a small little thing – blink and you’d miss it – and she usually doesn’t start until she’s deep in REM sleep, when most of her companions would be asleep, too. Luisa has a horrible habit of wanting to stay awake longer than her partners, and while she hasn’t given up where Rose is concerned, the truth of the matter is that she, too, is exhausted. Rose can see it in the way her hands slowly relax as she fades into unconsciousness, the soothing of the lines deeply engraved into her brow, the loosening of her jaw – which never looked as tight as Rose did only because it was _always_ tight with anxiety and trying to keep herself from blurting something out that she should keep to herself. Relaxed as she is, Luisa is even more beautiful. She keeps one hand up on the pillow next to her, and she’s still facing Rose because she’d been staring, disbelieving, at her before she fell asleep.

The submarine is for her. It’s soothing. She can wake in the morning when Rose has slipped from the room for some important detail or other and stare out the circular window and see one of any number of fish who keep curiously drifting past their vessel. They’ve been circling the reef, and more often than not those fish are as brightly colored as the ones Rose knows decorated the walls in Luisa’s bedroom when she was small – she’s seen them almost everywhere Emilio has taken her where he owned a residence, the fish and the waves and the sea and the little water features that bubble and lead her into relaxation.

And when she chooses to return to her own room, needing to be away from her, then it is even more tailored to her. Because of the way their submarine is angled, the way it circles the reef, her window is always facing it, always presented with coral and anemone and those distinct features that Luisa loves. The lightbulb was replaced with one that gave off a soft blue glow, so that she looked just as much under the sea as she was.

Most days, Luisa still wants to be in her room, away from Rose, but some days, like today, she stays.

Rose reaches over and tucks a stray strand of frumpled, wavy brown hair back behind her ear. Luisa’s nose scrunches up, and she lets out a little strangled sound. Then she sighs ad relaxes again.


	34. university stud follow up pt. 2

Luisa wakes refreshed. _More_ than refreshed. Luisa wakes _excited_. She’d been with…with _Rose_. Finally. She’d been following her for months – _okay, not following, she’d been very clear about that not following people and specifically about not following Rose they really had just been in the same place at the same time frequently she hadn’t been analyzing her schedule she hadn’t_ —

Okay, there was a time to be honest with herself and maybe this was it.

Still – Rose had been here when she fell asleep. Rose had assured her she would fall asleep soon, too. But when she looks around—

Rose is nowhere to be found.

Luisa pushes a hand through her rumpled brown hair – it’s all frizzy now, frizzy and frumpy and not tangled but it’s that _sex hair_ more than it is _bed hair_ , even though really it’s a little bit of both; Rose was good with her hands – and her lips – and her teeth – and her—

_Luisa. Get a grip._

There is no beautiful redhead laying in bed next to her. There is no indication that there was anyone other than herself in the dorm room at all. There is no dress scattered on the floor from the dramatic disrobing (although Luisa’s skirt is still draped over her television, which is a much better place for it than the floor, where her blouse lies crumpled into a heap. She can’t see her shoes. They must have been kicked under the bed. She could believe that they’re under the bed. Or maybe Rose took them with her. _Ew, no, why would Rose steal her shoes?_ No one was like that. Actually, that’s not true, there are definitely people like that, but Rose didn’t strike her as a foot kink person. No, no, bad train of thought, let’s _focus_ Luisa).

The important thing is that not only is Rose _not there_ but there’s no indication that she’s _ever_ been there. Which, you know, is odd because after the moving and shaking and bumping into things there should be some indication of something somewhere—

Luisa climbs out of her bed, off of the bunk, and starts to examine the room. _Ah, there, something._ Even if it is just a scratch in the wood. Rose had a very firm, very strong notching nail. _Speaking of which—_

Luisa scurries, _still nude_ , into the bathroom. It isn’t as big of a deal as it might have been in her last room; she may not have this dorm to herself, but her roommate has taken the weekend to go back to her parents and her family and everything—

Roommate is a…interesting term. Allison isn’t really her roommate. Or she _is_ or _was_ or _something to that effect_ but now they’re…something that isn’t…really…roommates.

They technically haven’t broken up yet. Maybe it’s a _good_ thing that Rose hasn’t left any reminders that she’s been here.

Except—

Luisa stands in front of her full length mirror, angling it across from the mirror that hangs over the sink, and then turns so that her back is facing it, so that she can see her back in the opposite mirror. And there, there, _of course_ , there are marks. There are red lines, pricked with smeared blood that had dried _probably_ on her sheets so she should probably wash those. Even more to the point, now that she’s staring in a mirror, Luisa can see the deep purples and blues of bites and sucking marks and the hickeys like jewels around her neck. Rose was definitely here. She was just very good at cleaning up her other tracks.

Luisa takes a deep breath. _Not_ a hallucination, then. That is the important thing. Rose was real and really here and left her marks and it wasn’t just a wet dream but something that actually happened and she hadn’t just imagined the beautiful redhead literally walking up to her in the bar and talking with her and _drinking with her_ and then coming back with her here.

She brushes a hand through her hair again. Okay, first thing’s first, if Rose isn’t here and is gone, then that means she’s got time to clean up and make herself seem a little bit better before trying to track the redhead down.

It’s the weekend. Rose is here in the little town where their college is situated instead of spending the weekend going home to visit people or going on a short trip or anything like that. She was _here_. Somewhere.

Probably holed up in her apartment like a good, productive student. Like maybe Luisa should be, if she wasn’t so intent on trying to find her again.

Actually – better idea – take the weekend to think all of this over and then go find Rose on Monday. It’s not like she doesn’t know where she’ll be on when her classes are. _Not because she’s been following her, because that’s not the word she’s using, and don’t you dare say she’s stalking her, because she’s not_ – but because their classes just happen to be in the same building and they both usually happen to enter from the same side and _look_ , they’d probably been doing this for a very long time _but_ Luisa hadn’t noticed Rose before because she _hadn’t noticed Rose before_ and now that she _had_ noticed her, it was impossible to _not_ notice her. That’s just the kind of person Rose was.

Is.

_And she’d slept with her._

Luisa takes a deep breath as the shower’s hot water pelts her back. It stings when it hits the marks Rose has left behind, but it’s a good feeling. A _nice_ feeling, no matter how painful it is. It’s just a constant reminder that it’s real, that it happened, that—

Luisa takes another deep breath of the steam now surrounding her and feels herself relaxing even more than she already has. She feels _good_. Very good. A little bit worried about Rose leaving without a word or without leaving her number or anything, but maybe if she looks around later, she’ll find it on her desk or somewhere.

She doesn’t think to check the empty photo frame.

Why would anyone mess with that?


	35. university stud follow up pt. 3

“Rose!”

Luisa sprints after her as soon as she sees her. It’s a good thing that college doesn’t have that _stupid stupid **stupid**_ rule that her high school did about not using backpacks and having to carry their books everywhere (which, to be fair, might have partially been her fault, even if they _did_ have that rule in place before she’d started going there. But having a backpack would make it far too easy to smuggle in more booze. As it was, she got by with water bottles and vodka. Or the shiny metallic ones that had other stuff in them. She could always think around having booze. Not that it matters anymore). Her backpack thuds against her back as she runs – it’s a little looser than it’s probably supposed to be but, _ugh_ , it looks _bad_ from an aesthetic trying to be attractive (and if you think people can’t be attractive in a backpack then you have not met Rose Ruvelle, who admittedly rarely wears a backpack and instead prefers to keep her stuff in a much bigger, much _fancier_ bag on her shoulder. But when she _does_ use a backpack – and Luisa has seen it, weighted down with what looks like tons of library books, particularly after that first day when she asked to use her pen – somehow she looks just as attractive with it)—

Speaking of which, Rose is attractive now. It’s an entirely different look from the one this past weekend, one that’s much more natural and normal and more…alluring, in Luisa’s opinion, than the dress and the wavy hair and the whole dressed to stun (or kill) look. She actually – it’s not a _better_ feeling, but she feels much more comfortable around Rose this way, even though she’s rarely talked to her like this. Less than she had in the dress, which was even less than she had in nothing at all.

Okay, if she could speak to Rose in nothing at all, then certainly she could speak to her in jean shorts, certainly she could speak to her in a white peasant blouse with rose accents, surely she could speak to her with her hair pulled back in a frizzy ponytail and glasses and a bright smile as she speaks to someone who must be from one of her other classes.

It’s a fake smile. It’s a fake smile!

Either that or the smiles Luisa had seen in her bed this weekend were fake, and in her opinion, those were a lot harder to fake. _Besides,_ she’s good at the whole sex thing, so there’s no way those were fake smiles, which means this one – _this one!_ – had to be fake. Had to be. She couldn’t let herself think otherwise.

Luisa stops next to her and the other girl – a blonde almost Rose’s exact height, if Rose weren’t wearing shoes with the slightest heel to them, giving her the slightest height advantage, with brown eyes and a weird sort of smile – which means it had to be real and not faked – turns to her. She tilts her head to one side. “Looks like you’ve got a lady caller.”

_Her accent’s kind of cute._

“Can you give us a few seconds, Suze?” Rose’s smile freezes. Now Luisa _knows_ it’s fake, even if she hadn’t been uncertain before (there’s no way it isn’t!) – real smiles don’t freeze like that. They just don’t!

The blonde – Suze, which has got to be short for something – waves one hand. “I’ll see ya at practice later.”

“Of course.”

Then there’s no time to keep considering what Suze is short for because the blonde is gone – fine with Luisa, she’s here to talk to Rose anyway – and Rose is fully focused on her, bright blue eyes taking in her shorter stature – and Luisa’s not super short by any means, but she _is_ shorter than Rose, which is…well, it’s cute, she thinks they’re a cute couple – _they’re not a couple yet, but they’re cute together, she thinks they’re cute together, wouldn’t Rose think that? Of course she does_ – but she feels herself trying to pull up to her full height, straightening the straps of her backpack, and she meets the other woman’s bright blue eyes as clearly as she can. “Hey.”

Rose nods at her. “Hey.”

That’s it. Just. _Hey._ No indication of anything going on between them, no indication of anything from this weekend, no indication that Luisa – she hadn’t cheated on her girlfriend because she and Allison weren’t – aren’t! – really together just sometimes, you know, it’s complicated and she’s not thinking about it, especially not right now, not when she’s with _Rose_ —

Luisa takes a deep breath. “So. About this weekend.”

Rose’s eyes grow steely, and her head tilts to one side. “What about it?”

“I thought it might be nice to do again,” Luisa says all at once, and she regrets it as soon as she says it because that is _not_ the way she meant to be having this conversation or starting it or anything like that but there it is, all out, all at once, and she swallows and keeps herself standing firm in front of her and meeting her eyes no matter how steely and cold they now seemed.

“I don’t think so.”

Rose begins to walk away, and Luisa runs after her, taking her arm. “Why not?”

“I’m not in the mood for a relationship. Or did my leaving not explain that enough for you?”

Rose doesn’t even look back to face her again. Okay, so this isn’t going so well. Luisa can feel her stomach clench. “We don’t…we don’t have to be in a relationship,” she says, quickly once she gets started, because it’s _something_ and she wants Rose to give her more of her time. “We could just…every now and again. When you want to—”

“Look.” Rose still doesn’t look back to face her. “We had a nice time. Why don’t you leave it at that? If I wanted anything else from you, I’d know where to find you.”

Luisa nods and bites her lower lip. “Oh. Okay.” She brushes her hair back out of her face. “If that’s really the way you feel.”

“If I felt otherwise, I would have left my number for you.” Rose finally looks back, glancing over her shoulder. “Did I leave my number for you?”

Luisa knows the answer. She knows the answer is _no_. She doesn’t have the heart to say it. She lets out her breath and stares at the ground. When she finally looks back up, Rose has walked off, ending their conversation, if it could even be called that.

Allison will be back later. She’s running later than normal. Something about important family stuff. She can’t really explain this to her, but she can…she can explain that she’s in a bad mood. That something’s wrong. She won’t want the kind of comfort Allison will want to provide, but it’s something.

It’s consistent, anyway.

She could use some consistent right now.


	36. ROISA MEETS ANIMAL CROSSING PT. 1

“Lu, what are you doing?”

Luisa lay sprawled on their couch in a pose that was usually uniquely Rose’s – all legs hanging over one arm and the rest of her flat against the cushions, hair splayed out under her – with some sort of not mobile but still gaming device in her hands. She held up one finger, gave an unhappy sigh at the device, and then held it in her lap, staring at the ceiling. “Lamenting the fact that I can’t have all of the villagers on my island at any given time.”

Rose stared at her, blinked, considered it for a few second, and then said, “Luisa, we don’t have an island anymore. We lost that when you sold me out to the police. Remember?”

Luisa groaned. “I didn’t sell you out to _anyone_ and,” she shifted on the couch, sitting more upright and pushing herself against the opposite arm, “I didn’t say _our_ island, I said _my_ island.” She held the gaming device up in one hand. “I got us a Switch.”

“A what?”

Luisa patted the cushion next to her. “It’s a Switch. Well, this one’s a lite because the normal ones are all sold out and I’m sure your connections could probably get us one of the really rare exclusive kinds but I didn’t feel like that’s what we should be using your connections for, so I got us a lite.” She grinned and settled a little more firmly into her cushion. “I got us _two_ actually. This one,” she held up hers, “is turquoise because you know how I feel about blues and calming and they’re great, and yours,” she pulled out a box from behind the sofa as Rose sat down next to her, “is all rosy pink.” She grinned. Then the grin faded. “Okay, _technically_ , it’s _coral_ but you know what, it _looks_ pink and we can call it rosy pink all we want because no one’s going to be around to hear us but ourselves.” She placed the box in Rose’s lap and then leaned over and kissed her cheek. “And you don’t get to complain about it already being open because no one tampered with it, I just wanted to make sure it was charged and that you had Animal Crossing downloaded so that you could play with me and we could visit each other’s islands and stuff.” She pressed her lips together and looked down at her device. “Only you don’t have to visit my island and I don’t have to visit yours, but—” She sighed. “It’s more fun if we can play together.”

Rose stared at the box, flipping open one of the sides carefully with one thumb. “You want me to play a video game.”

“Well,” Luisa took a deep breath, “I thought it would be something nice to do, you know. And video games you can still kill people and blood and gore and stuff.”

“And you play this game?” Rose asked, one brow raising as she looked at Luisa.

“Oh, no, Animal Crossing doesn’t do blood and gore. It’s actually pretty chill. You just fly out to an island and then you…well, you don’t own the island, but you get to pick which villagers live there sort of and you get to pick where everyone lives and eventually you get to terraforming….” She sighed. “I haven’t gotten terraforming yet. I haven’t gotten much of _anything_ yet because it syncs to real time and I think you have to play for so many days before you can do stuff like that and it’s….” She sighed again. “Right now I only have two villagers and I love them both and—”

Rose reached over to try and take Luisa’s device.

Luisa swatted at her hand and held hers close to her. “No! You have your own!”

“I thought you wanted to show me your island,” Rose said, staring at her as innocently as she could manage.

“When you can fly and visit me! And when I can fly and visit you!” Luisa pouted. “I don’t want you taking it and playing around with it or anything.” She shook her head. “Besides, I thought you’d want your own island to do whatever you wanted with it. And _this way_ we get _twice as many villagers_.” She winked and then grinned.

Rose stared down at the little device in her hands. Okay, not so _little_ because it’s bigger than her phone is – bigger than her phone has ever been, but smaller than tablets. She’s never really been one for these sorts of things. She hadn’t grown up with them – Elena had refused to get her one, and while Derek had them, that had been while she was at college, and then she hadn’t really cared. She’d had other things on her mind. So this…this was new to her.

“How do I play?” she asked, staring at it.

“Well, first of all,” Luisa flipped Rose’s forward and pressed one of the small buttons on the top, “you press this button to turn it on.” She grinned and pressed a kiss to Rose’s cheek again. “I only downloaded Animal Crossing for you, _but_ I also got us the Pokemon games but I didn’t know if you wanted Sword or Shield – they have different Pokemon on them, so I thought it would be cool to look at them and then if there ones you wanted and liked best you could have that game and I could have the other one and I know we can trade them and everything so we can both have full pokedexes and everything so it’s really not that big of a deal but—” Luisa slowly stopped as she saw Rose’s blanking expression, and she grinned again as Rose gave a little nod. “This is all going completely over your head, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

Luisa laughed. “You’re cute. Have I ever told you that you’re cute?”

Rose pouted. “I’m not cute. You’re the cute one. I’m the hot one.”

“ _Hey, I’m hot, too._ ” Luisa stuck her tongue out, and as Rose leaned forward, she stuck a hand between them. “And we’re not doing that right now. I’m showing you how to play games.”


	37. roisa meets animal crossing pt. 2

“So,” Rose stared at the little creatures on her screen, her brows furrowing, “how do I know which one to pick?”

Luisa leaned over the back of the couch and rested her head on Rose’s shoulder. “You pick whichever one you think is cutest.”

Rose stared at the screen a little longer and then tilted her head to one side so that she could stare at her wife. “No, one of them has to be better at this whole battling system than the other two are. Which one do I pick to be better at killing everything?”

Luisa frowned. “You don’t kill anything in Pokemon, Rose.”

“But you fight things.”

“And they faint. And then they can get better and go back to fighting again.”

Rose’s eyes narrowed. “That’s more gruesome than killing things, Lu.”

Luisa sighed and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “It’s a children’s game, Rose. No one thinks about this stuff as much as you do.” She pressed her lips together and stared at the three starters. “I picked Grooky.”

Rose’s face went blank.

Luisa sighed again. “Grooky is the green monkey with the stick. The musician!”

“Okay, got it, don’t pick that one.” Rose turned to Luisa with a grin, tongue peeking out of one corner of her lips.

“You’re so mean!” Luisa stepped back, putting her hands on her hips, and glared at her wife. “Just because I picked the monkey doesn’t mean she won’t be good for fighting, and—”

“No, no, I mean for trading. Then we can each have a monkey and one of these,” Rose gestured at the screen with one hand, “other ones.” She met Luisa’s eyes. “That’s why you wanted us to have the different versions, right? So we could get all of the little animal things?”

“ _Pokemon_ ,” Luisa corrected, “and we still won’t have whatever the third one is, _but I think_ I can find us someone who will trade us one of those for one of our starters if I play nice enough.” She smiled and leaned forward again, resting her head on her hands where they rest on the back of the couch. “And, yeah, that’s a smart idea. Don’t get a Grooky. Get one of the other ones.”

Rose went back to staring at the screen. “So which of these two is the better fighter?”

“How am _I_ supposed to know, Rose? _I_ haven’t used them!” Luisa placed a hand on Rose’s shoulder and gripped it tightly. “And don’t you dare look it up. Pick the one you like!”

“I’ll like whichever one is the better fighter,” Rose growled. She met Luisa’s eyes. “Please let me check.”

Luisa stuck her tongue out. “ _No._ ” She brushed a hand through Rose’s frizzy red hair. “Besides, they’ll _both_ be good fighters if you train them up well. They’re just better for different things.” She hummed. “I think the first gym is a grass type gym.”

Rose’s eyes narrowed. “Luisa, I don’t know what that means.”

“Okay, so,” Luisa stared at the screen, “each of the starter Pokemon are one of three types – grass, water, and fire. Grass beats water, water beats fire, and fire beats grass. There are a lot of other types and a lot of other strengths and weaknesses. Like fire beats bug but bug beats grass. Flying beats grass but electric beats flying. Fairy beats dark beats psychic beats fighting beats dark—”

“Okay, pick the fire one, got it.” Rose stared at the screen. “The bunny was the fire one, right?”

“Rose, that’s not what I—”

Rose raised one hand and waved it away from her. “I got it, I got it, and look,” she held up her rosy pink device and showed Luisa her screen, “I finally got my first pokemon.”

“What’re you going to name him?” Luisa asked with a grin.

Rose glared down at the screen. “Wait. _Him?_ You got a girl!” She tapped the screen. “How do I make mine a girl?”

Luisa shrugged. “You don’t without resetting the— _hey_!”

“I want a girl,” Rose said, glaring at Luisa. “Now tell me how I get a female bunny so I don’t have to go through all of this again. I’ll just end up looking up all that which is a better fighter stuff and picking someone else and it might be your monkey if she’s better, so—”

“Ugh, Rose, you’re so—”

“What?” Rose asked, her eyebrows raising, meeting Luisa’s eyes again. “Annoying? Frustrating? Conniving? _Mean?_ ” She stared at Luisa, holding her gaze. “I was a crime lord, Luisa. I—”

Luisa flicked her forehead. “You’re not one anymore.” She frowned. “Just save it before you pick the bunny. Then you can just close and restart until you get a girl. It might take a while, but—”

“Got it.” Rose waved her hand again. “Go play your game and come back in a few minutes and you can see my new kiddo.”

“Rose, I don’t think there are any Skiddo in—” Luisa shook her head, rubbed her forehead, and curled up on the other side of the couch, pulling her own Switch out from under the sofa. “You don’t even know what that is.”

“Nope.”

Luisa stared at Rose as her wife started the game over, trying to race through the starting screens to get back to where she was. “What did you name your character?” she asked, finally.

“Hm?”

“What did you name yourself?” Luisa asked again. She pressed her lips together. “Are you Rose or Susanna or Eileen or…or are you Clara?”

Rose looked up, blinked a couple of times, and then met Luisa’s eyes. “I didn’t think about it that much,” she said with a shrug.

“But what…Rose, what was your name?”

“Sin Rostro.”

Luisa stared at her again. There was silence for a few minutes, and then she nodded once. “I…I guess…that makes sense. I just thought—”

“It’s a game, Luisa,” Rose said, trying to cut her off before she could start. “It’s not about my name; it’s about what will strike fear into the hearts of my opponents. Sin Rostro is a good name, despite all of its faults. And in a game where you can customize so much about what you look like—”

“I got it, I got it.” Luisa burrowed into her pillow, looking at her Switch instead of up at Rose. “I’m just going to go to my island again. Visit me when you’ve got time.”

Rose let out a little huff, but she knew better than to try and argue with Luisa when she was in that sort of mood. It wouldn’t end well. Not for either of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah, i know, this is more pokemon than it is animal crossing, but. oh well.


	38. roisa meets animal crossing pt. 3

“So can I see your island yet?”

Rose’s eyes widened, and she quickly pressed the power button on her rosy pink Switch before pressing it against her chest and hiding the screen as though it wasn’t already black. “No. It’s not done yet.” She looked down at her console, which was currently playing just about _anything_ other than Animal Crossing. Primarily Pokemon. She’d gotten more than a little bit addicted. Luisa might not have told her about competitive play, but once she learned about it, she’d gone all in. She was certain Lu was regretting buying it for her at all.

“Oh.” Luisa scrunched down on the couch next to her. “Do you want to come over and see mine?”

Rose pressed her lips together. “Uh, I’d love to, Lu, but, uh, I can’t fly to your island right now. I don’t have enough Nook Miles to buy one of those tickets.”

“You don’t need those to come visit my island. We’re already friends and everything, so we just do it that way. It’s an entirely different thing, and my island – Its terraforming is pretty amazing.” Luisa’s eyes lit up. “I _really_ want you to see it.”

The worst part about not playing the game was knowing that Luisa wanted her to play the game. Rose sighed. “Maybe later?” She watched as Luisa’s face fell – not the first time where this game was concerned – and cupped her cheek with one hand. “Why don’t you just show it to me on yours? Wouldn’t that be easier?”

Luisa’s brow furrowed, and she stared unhappily at Rose. “If you have time to look at it on _my_ Switch, then you have time to fly over and explore yourself. And I can give you all sorts of things if you’re looking for different recipes or flowers or clothes or furniture or _anything_. All you have to do is fly over.”

Rose frowned and stared down at her Switch. “I can’t.”

“You just don’t want to,” Luisa said with a pout.

“No,” Rose said, sighing again, “I really can’t. Tom Nook won’t let me fly anywhere right now.”

Luisa stared at her a little longer, her frown deepening. “He should. Is there a bug in your game? Should we call tech support, because—”

“No.” Although Rose would have had fun calling tech support and trying to get them to fix a problem that wasn’t really a problem or just calling them to cause havoc (she didn’t get to cause near enough havoc anymore, and Pokemon didn’t really help with that), she felt like Luisa would be more upset with her for that than she would for actually being honest. Besides, she knew just how important honesty was to her wife, and this wasn’t that big of a thing. It wasn’t. Really, it wasn’t. “I haven’t gotten to the point where he’ll let me fly anywhere.”

“But you’ve had the game for _over a month_ , Rose, why haven’t you—” Luisa stopped, her eyes widening. “Oh.”

Point in her favor, Rose did not flinch.

“You haven’t been playing it.”

“I got _bored_ , Lu. There’s no killing anything. No fighting. Just the little animals who want my help doing things _and you know how much I hate helping people_.” Rose tried to meet Luisa’s eyes, but Luisa turned away from her. “It’s not that I don’t want to play the game with you, I just—”

“Only care about blood and fighting and all of that. I got it. _Sin Rostro._ ” Luisa propped herself up off of the couch with one hand. “I got…I got these games for us to play and have fun _together_ , not so you can just…I mean…I guess it’s your Switch, so you can do what you want with it, but I thought it’d be nice for us to have our own villages and our own villagers and meet and collect different things and see how we each make our islands look—”

“Luisa, you’ve already seen what I would do with an island if I had an island.”

“ _It’s not the same thing!_ ” Luisa took a deep breath and let it out, rubbing her forehead with one hand. “You can’t terraform a real island. Maybe _you_ can because you have that much money, but you can’t suddenly make all natural mountains. You didn’t have a museum. You—”

“I wouldn’t have wanted a museum.”

“—didn’t have an aquarium,” Luisa continued as though Rose hadn’t said anything at all, her eyes narrowing. “And don’t try and tell me you wouldn’t have wanted an aquarium because—”

“Luisa, I know how you feel about aquariums, but I also wouldn’t have wanted to trigger an episode around your birthday because we had an aquarium—”

“That’s not how that works.” Luisa’s voice was soft. Very soft. She kept looking away, unable to meet Rose’s eyes. “I would have wanted an aquarium. A good one. I know we had a beach and the ocean and all the fish we could ask for, but there’s something so nice about an aquarium – and you wouldn’t have gotten _sunburned_ in an aquarium—”

“I was getting good at not getting sunburned on the beach, too, I’ll have you know—”

“ _Rose._ ” Luisa took a deep breath and stared at her. Her lips rolled together, and she bit the lower one. “You don’t want to play the game. It’s okay. It’s okay that you don’t want to play the game. I mind, but I’m not going to make you play it. You don’t like it. _You barely played it a day—_ ”

“How do you know how long I played it?”

“ _That’s how long it takes to be able to fly over and visit me._ ” Luisa’s voice was still soft, and she shook her head once. “It’s fine. You’re fine. Just…you won’t get to see my island. At all. Until you can fly over and see it.” She looked up and met Rose’s eyes with a little smile. “You just have to get back on and do a little more playing, and then you can come right on over, okay? Just fly over. Let me know when you can.”

“Luisa—”

But Luisa turned away from her, waving one hand to signal that she couldn’t have the conversation right now.

Rose sighed. She looked down at her console. Fine. _Fine._ She would play the stupid game. She could do that.


	39. roisa meets animal crossing pt. 4

After that last fight, Luisa dropped all conversation about Animal Crossing. She didn’t ask to go see Rose’s island – what was the point, when Rose hadn’t been doing anything to make it her own? And she didn’t ask Rose to come see hers anymore – she’d told her to let her know when she was ready to see it, and that was the last she could do. It took too much emotional energy to try and get Rose to change her mind, to try and convince her to do something that she didn’t really want to do, so she gave up.

Of course, Rose didn’t try to bring up the conversation either. Every now and again, she would look over and see Luisa curled up in one of their arm chairs, her legs tucked up against one arm and her back propped up against the other with her turquoise Switch in her hands, and, as soon as Luisa noticed her, she’d hide her console or change games or…something. Rose knew that Luisa had more friends on her Switch than she did – Rose didn’t _want_ to be friends with anyone and, honestly, didn’t have anyone to add, but Luisa used her island to keep in touch with the friends (and, admittedly, some family) who wanted to keep in touch with her.

Rose did, eventually, add Petra and JR as friends, but that didn’t do her much good at all. The twins used Petra’s Switch to play Pokemon, and while they were okay at competitions, Rose easily swept them both. JR would only pick up the console every now and again, and when she did, it wasn’t for very long at all and it wasn’t on whatever game Rose was playing.

That was actually the best thing about the Switch and the part most important to Rose’s plan: whenever she logged onto her console, she could see which of her friends was on and what they were playing. Which meant that she could see when _Luisa_ was on and what _she_ was playing.

The thing about Animal Crossing was that whenever Luisa signed in while Rose was on, the game would alert her, and whenever Rose signed in while Luisa was on, the game would tell _her_. She’d seen Luisa’s eyes light up once when she got on after her, and she knew that it was doing the same thing. So, of course, Rose had made sure to get on only when Luisa wasn’t already. Luisa could, of course, check to see what game Rose was playing whenever she wanted – they were friends; she had that option – but Rose was fairly certain that she wouldn’t. That wasn’t Luisa’s style the way it was hers.

And so, with her plan in mind, Rose began the task of building up her island.

At first, she was still bored out of her mind. She was just collecting _things_ and learning how to do all of the tutorial stuff and she just wanted the game to take off its training wheels and let her _go_ already. And when it finally seemed to, she realized that, really, there were still training aspects to it – this is how you add other villagers, these are the other creatures who will sometimes visit, here let us give you rewards for playing the game every day, etc. While she still didn’t really enjoy it all that much, she started spending at least a little bit of time playing every day – not very long, especially not compared with trying to breed her Pokemon – but enough. And by the time K.K. Slider _finally_ came to her island and performed (and then decided to come _every_ week because her island was _just so cool_ ), she’d gotten…not addicted, because that wasn’t the best word for it, but maybe a little bit addicted.

Rose began to spend more time on the game. Now that she had terraforming and could make the island look exactly the way she wanted – as Luisa said she would eventually – it felt like the game had finally gotten _good_. She kept finding herself spending hours pouring into the island and making it the way she wanted, chewing on the ends of her frizzy red hair and staring at her screen as she puzzled over the best way to make it look the way she wanted.

One day, Luisa leaned over the back of the couch, rested her head on her shoulder, and said, “Are you ready to see my island yet?”

Rose jumped in her skin and hid her screen against her chest the same way she’d seen Luisa doing. “No,” she said. “Not yet. I can’t fly yet.”

Luisa stuck her tongue out at her. “Yes, you can. You’ve been playing that thing every day for months. You’ve been terraforming; _I can see your island_.”

Rose pressed the power button on her console and looked up at her. “You’re not supposed to look at my island. You’re supposed to wait until I invite you to see it. Besides, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Luisa placed her hands on her hips. “I thought we weren’t supposed to lie to each other anymore.”

“There’s a difference between a lie and a surprise.” Rose pressed her lips together and pouted. “If I don’t get to see yours until I go visit it, then you can’t see mine until you come visit.”

Besides, it wasn’t _done_ yet. Not just the island itself, but there were villagers she did _not_ want who were still hanging around, and she was still waiting on them to leave so she could go find others that she liked better. She’d done _some_ research on it. There were a handful that she didn’t hate. (More importantly, there were a handful that she thought Luisa would like.)

Actually, come to think of it—

“Which villagers do you have?” Rose asked, feigning innocence.

Luisa’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t get to know until you come visit.”

Rose sighed. “ _You’re_ the one who wanted us to have different villagers. How am I going to know which villagers you have and which ones I’m not _supposed_ to have unless you tell me?”

Luisa frowned. “You come visit. Or I come visit. That’s how that works.” She grinned. “Unless you want to tell me which villagers _you_ have.”

Rose considered this for a moment. Then she nodded. “I started with Fuchsia and Biff.”

“Oh, they’re cute.” Luisa curled up on the couch next to her. “You going to keep them?”

“Fuchsia, yes. Not Biff.” Rose scowled. “I don’t see how you think he’s cute.”

Luisa shrugged. “When you get him to leave, I could come claim him.” Then she bit her lower lip. “On second thought, I don’t really want him that much.”

Rose took a deep breath and then hid her console under the couch. “Can we _not_ talk about this?” she asked, her eyes widening in a silent sort of plea. “Not until later?”

_Let me keep this a surprise._

Luisa scanned her eyes and then gave a firm nod. “Just tell me one thing first.”

Rose’s brow furrowed, but she nodded anyway.

“What flowers did you start with?”

Rose’s lips spread into an easy grin. “Roses.”


	40. roisa high school fake dating au pt. 6

Luisa looked at Clara. _Really_ looked at her. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t seen her before – wasn’t as though she wasn’t seeing her now – but she hadn’t really expected Clara to dare her to do such a thing. Not that there was anything wrong with it, not after _she’d_ dared _Clara_ to kiss her. Normally, she would feel – not _frustrated_ , not really, because she _liked_ kissing girls – really, she did, she liked kissing girls – but she didn’t want to just be one of those one-off kisses. She couldn’t handle that. Not with Clara.

Her lips pressed together and she gave a little nod. She wasn’t going to double check with Clara or question her – she knew the sort of look Clara was giving her now, knew that determined look, knew the taking a deep breath before saying something – those were all actions she did, once upon a time, and not so once upon a time – she did them now, too, when she needed the gumption to get herself to do something she wanted to do – or knew she _had_ to do and _didn’t_ want to do. Her eyes met Clara’s. “Any kind of kiss?” she asked.

Clara pressed her lips together and then shook her head.

Luisa could feel her heart drop. Of course, she didn’t want a _real_ kiss. Or she did. She _knew_ what Clara wanted, knew that Clara had admitted to wanting to kiss her, knew that Clara…had kissed her but _hadn’t really_ kissed her – and she knew that Clara had been kissed before, but maybe it was just hard for her to initiate. She understood that. Some people were like that.

Or maybe Clara just hadn’t kissed a _girl_ before and wasn’t sure how to go about doing it.

“What kind of kiss do you want, then?” Luisa asked, meeting Clara’s eyes. She wasn’t going to hold out hope, wasn’t going to expect anything, wasn’t going to—

“Like you’d kiss me if your dad walked in,” Clara said, dropping her gaze and not meeting her eyes. “Like you’d kiss me if I was _actually_ your girlfriend.”

Oh.

_Oh._

Luisa bit her lower lip as she began to smile. She could do that. She could _really, really_ do that. That was, after all, what she’d hoped Clara would do. Maybe Clara really just didn’t know how to start these things. But that was a question for later.

“Stay very still,” Luisa whispered, and she reached over, her fingers tracing Clara’s face before she pushed strands of her frizzy red hair back out of her face. It was an excuse to lean closer – she didn’t really _need_ an excuse, given the dare, which was enough of an excuse in and of itself – but she liked having one anyway. Besides, she didn’t want to just all up and kiss her. There was a certain comfortability level that came first, a certain build-up of tension.

Her eyes met Clara’s, but Clara’s searched hers, unable to hold still.

Luisa shifted positions. Her eyes flicked down to Clara’s lips, focused there for a few seconds, and then back up to Clara’s eyes. Then she leaned forward so that their noses just touched, brushing hers against Clara’s. She waited for Clara’s eyes to close, waited for her to brush her nose against hers, too, for her to lean forward so that their lips were just touching. Then—

“ _Luisa Alver._ ”

Clara jumped back all at once, smacking her head against the headboard. She rubbed her head with one hand. “What was that?”

Luisa winced. “ _My dad._ ” As soon as she said it, there came a pounding at the door, and Clara’s eyes met hers, not afraid because she didn’t think Clara looked afraid, but glancing from her eyes to her lips as though questioning whether they should be doing anything at all. Luisa shook her head. “Just stay there. Don’t say anything.” She crept off of her treasure box bed, pushing herself up with the flats of her hands, and walked over to the door, opening it with a sheepish grin. “Hey, Dad.”

Her father pushed the door open, revealing Clara sitting on the bed where Luisa had abandoned her. Luisa turned to face her friend, not so much watching her dad’s reaction to her as watching her reaction to him, gauging it. Clara sat completely still, focused only on Luisa, occasionally letting her gaze drift to Luisa’s dad, but nevertheless appearing just as confident as Luisa knew she could. She felt her heart swell with happiness.

“Who is this?” her father asked.

She hated when he asked her questions and he sounded _mad_ at her. He wasn’t nearly as mad at her half of the time as he was at Rafael, other than when she and her – not friends but – party members had broken into his liquor cabinet, and he sounded mad at her now. Not nearly as mad as either of those occasions, but still _mad_.

“This is my girlfriend,” Luisa said, her lips turning up into what she hoped looked like a comfortable, smug, and not at all awkward smile. “Her name’s Clara. I thought it would be nice to bring her back so that she could meet you.” She glanced up and met her dad’s eyes. He was still taller than her, which was frustrating, but she was sure she still had a little bit of a growth spurt left, and when _that_ was done, she would be taller than him.

Clara was already taller than both of them. That was maybe part of the appeal. Luisa was easily average height, which meant there was rarely a _huge_ height gap, and while Clara wasn’t _that_ much taller than her, Luisa liked that she was smaller than Clara was. It made her feel comfortable. She couldn’t say why.

“And you didn’t consider asking me before bringing her here?”

Luisa shrugged. “I didn’t think you would mind. It’s just one person – and my girlfriend – so I thought, since she wasn’t a friend but a date, you’d be fine with that.” She met her dad’s eyes. “You _are_ fine with it, aren’t you?”

Her father glanced down and met her eyes. “We will talk about this later.” Then he glanced over and gave Clara a nod. “I’ll talk to you at dinner.”

Clara nodded once. “Yes, sir.”

Then her father closed the door behind him, leaving them alone.

Luisa let out a deeply held breath and made her way back to her bed before collapsing backwards. “That went better than I hoped.”

“You said he would be fine!” Clara said, staring at her. “You said this was all okay!”

Luisa grinned, and she was sure it was awkward this time. “I _hoped_ it would be. And it was! So we’re fine.” She propped herself up on her elbows and then stared at Clara. “No worries. He wasn’t mad at _you_. And dinner will be fine.” She slowly sat back up. “Now where were we?”


	41. dottielint get a kid pt. 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter /does/ mention/imply child abuse towards the child dottie and lint get (but not by either of them). head's up on that if that's a trigger for you.

They haven’t had her a month before they begin to realize that they aren’t cut out to be parents.

Janet never thought she was cut out to be a parent to begin with; she’d spent so much of her life unable to touch _anyone_ , let alone a child, that she wasn’t sure how to interact with one once they had one. Sometimes she stared and pressed her lips together and when the kid looked at her too long, she asked maybe a little too loudly and a little too frustrated, “ _What?_ ” Then the kid would scamper away and hide in her room like a frightened animal.

 _Not_ like a frightened animal. Janet was naturally better with animals than she was with children. You just had to be nice to them and let them come to you and give them treats and pet them occasionally, if they sniffed you and decided they were okay with being pet. Some of that might work with people, with _kids_ , but the whole _giving treats and pet them occasionally_ didn’t seem right. You don’t pet children. And you don’t give them treats as a reward. Or maybe you do. Her childhood hadn’t gone very well to begin with, so the best she could do is not treat the child the way she’d been treated and treat her the way that she’d wanted to be treated.

That last part was the hard one.

Dottie wasn’t bad with pets, but she was better with kids – with _their_ kid. She was the one who had wanted the child in the first place. She hadn’t been able to explain exactly why – which was a bad idea – and maybe it was more connected with her desire to be more heroic—

They hadn’t really _adopted_ the kid, per say. They’d found her. Well, _Dottie_ had found her.

They hadn’t stolen her either. Not really. They’d given her the option.

It had been impossible not to, when they’d seen the bruises, when they’d seen her house, when they’d seen—

There were two bodies electrified to a crisp where the girl – where _their kid_ – once lived. Dottie had taken her because Janet said this one was hers by right. Not because her guardians had been worse than Dottie’s – by all accounts, they were almost equal, and if someone had it worse than the other, _Dottie_ had it worse than _she_ did by a lot – but because she, at least, would give them a quick death that made it obvious just who had killed them.

Dottie had wanted to play with them the way they’d played with their daughter. Janet could have gotten behind that, but she wasn’t the one who could carry the child out of the house and away from it before her parents dealt with the consequences of their actions.

They had the audacity to _thank her_ for not being Dottie. She’d hated them for that. Like she was some kind of hero.

Regardless – they had the kid now. It was a better arrangement for the kid. She was _certain_ that it was a better arrangement for the kid. She might not have been _nice_ , but she wasn’t _cruel_ by any stretch of the imagination. She just wasn’t good with kids. Wasn’t really good with people, and since kids were people, too—

She found the kid curled up in Dottie’s lap later. The kid wasn’t asleep. She stared at Janet with large eyes, and she shivered once. Dottie looked up and met Janet’s eyes. “Jan, you’re not supposed to _scare_ her. That’s what the ghosts and goblins are for.”

Janet scowled and rolled her eyes. “There _are_ no ghosts or goblins.” Her eyes moved to the kid. “Unless you like ghosts and goblins. I could find some for you—”

“ _No_ ,” the kid said, her voice a frightened squeak, and she hid her head in Dottie’s arms.

Dottie grinned up at Janet – she was _laughing_ at her, only without laughing because the kid would not have appreciated that. “Maybe ghosts and goblins are a _bad_ idea.”

“I told you there _weren’t_ any.” Janet strode forward and sat on the chair next to them. She leaned her head on one hand and stared at the kid. “Besides, I’d kill them before I let them hurt you.”

“If you got to them before I did.”

Janet shifted her head back and forth. “You’re better at protecting the kid. I’m better at ghosts and goblins and murder.”

Dottie’s brow furrowed. “I’m good at murder.”

Janet leaned down and met the kid’s eyes. “She could probably teach you how to be good at it. Then you wouldn’t have to worry about assholes like me. You wouldn’t have to be scared of anyone.” Her gaze flicked up to meet Dottie’s. “Except the ghosts and goblins. Dottie here doesn’t have the same skill set that I do.” She lifted one hand, letting the static flicker across her fingers.

The kid’s eyes went wide. “Can I learn to do _that_?”

Janet blinked. “Trust me, you don’t want to.” She tapped her grounding rings together, then pointed at the scar etched into the skin over her left eye. “You get it wrong and shit like this happens.”

“ ‘ve had worse.” The kid stared at her. “So teach me.”

“Can’t teach you.” Janet rolled her eyes. “You have to be born with it.” She tilted her head at Dottie. “Don’t have to be born with what _she’s_ got. Just have to be trained.”

“And injected with a super secret super special serum that we stole from some foreigners,” Dottie continued, glancing up at the sky. Then she ran a hand through the girl’s wavy red hair. “Don’t worry. Don’t plan on injecting you. It’s not good for little girls.”

The girl pressed her lips together. “Will it make me stronger?” She looked up, trying to meet Dottie’s eyes. “Strong like you?”

Janet groaned before Dottie could say anything. “We should really take her to someone else. Like Rhea. Or Luisa. They’re better with kids than—”

“Excuse you, I’m _great_ with kids.” Dottie’s eyes narrowed. “And this one’s mine and they can’t have her.”

_I want her. She’s mine._

Janet shuddered. Then she stood and patted the arm of the chair Dottie sat in. “Yeah, whatever. Enjoy your kid.”


	42. roisa meets animal crossing pt. 5

Time traveling quickly became Rose’s new best friend. Not because she didn’t like her villagers. _Ish_. They were okay. But after some quick scrolling around online, she’d learned about so many other villagers that she _didn’t_ have and _definitely wanted_. The first thing on her to-do list was to get rid of Biff. Actually, Biff wasn’t so bad. She didn’t _like_ him, but she didn’t loathe him entirely the way she did the gorilla whose name she hadn’t even learned who she _had_ to invite to live there because he was her first camper.

Stupid shitty gaming decision, making her invite the camper. She didn’t care if that was just the game teaching her that she could invite campers or not. She shouldn’t have to invite _anyone_ she didn’t want to invite. It was _her_ island, after all.

And since it was her island, she could kick them off, and if she had to time travel to do it, well then, _good riddance_.

Biff had been the first one to go. She understood that. He was probably getting tired of her thwacking him with her net whenever she saw him. She’d tried to hit him with the ax, but she figured Luisa wouldn’t have approved of that. Not that it mattered in a video game, but maybe she shouldn’t be too violent in what was supposed to be a _chill_ video game.

She hit the gorilla with the axe. It didn’t do anything. She regretted that. She had a shovel. She could bury him. _Or throw him in the ocean._ But then his house and all of his stuff would be there—

She could _take_ some of his stuff. And if he was gone long enough, maybe someone else would move into his house.

_That isn’t the way the game works, Rose._

She could hear Luisa’s voice in her head. That was maybe the best part of the game, hearing Luisa tell her that she should love and appreciate all of the animals (she didn’t; she definitely didn’t) and giving her tips and suggestions on how to change her island to make it even better looking (half of the time she ignored this because as much as she was building the island to entertain Luisa, she’d quickly learned that she wanted to build her island to appeal to her own sensibilities. Luisa would not like the roses everywhere, but Rose? _Rose did_ ).

Blanche was the first of the villagers that Rose actively hunted for. She didn’t love all of the ostriches – she didn’t _want_ all of the ostriches – but one look at her, and she loved her. As much as she _could_ love a video game character. Which was significantly less than she could love actual real life people who weren’t Luisa. So, really, she didn’t love her at all. She was just increasingly fond of her.

She quickly replaced all of her male villagers with female ones. Then, on a second thought, because she figured Luisa would like it better if she had one of every kind of villager, she spent _hundreds of thousands_ of Nook Miles Tickets to get Julian, the only smug villager she could stand. Also, he was a _unicorn_. And unicorns were fine, in her book. She briefly considered collecting the mythical set – Julian, the unicorn; Drago, the dragon; and Phoebe, the phoenix – but decided against that when she saw Drago.

Ugh. No.

She did get Phoebe, though. There was something symbolic about having a phoenix on her island. And she liked the ostrich design anyway. And she looked _so nice_ with Blanche.

Fuchsia got to stay. She liked Fuchsia. _She hadn’t gotten attached to a stupid video game character_ , but she was one of the few villagers she’d been randomly given that she actually liked – and there weren’t a lot of them she liked at all to begin with, so _why_ would she get rid of her? She didn’t feel bad when Fuchsia tried to leave during the time traveling. She just didn’t let her go.

There was something invigorating about that – about having a villager bring up that they wanted to leave, about having a villager _ask for her permission to leave_ , and then getting to tell them **no** , they _had_ to stay with her even longer, even if they really, _really_ didn’t want to. It always made her grin with glee.

Not that she could explain that to Luisa, who she was sure let her villagers leave whenever they asked, no matter how much it broke her heart, because she would want them to be able to explore _new horizons_. Not that she would know that, though, since she still hadn’t visited Luisa’s island yet.

And that was the strange thing about this – that as much as she _wanted_ to visit Luisa’s island, in truth, a part of her didn’t. She knew that as soon as she visited Luisa’s island she would think that her island should change to match what the love of her life wanted, since she was playing this game for her to begin with – or, at least, she’d _started_ to play it for her and then not so quickly but eventually realized that she liked playing it on her own without any of Luisa’s input.

She missed the Caymans, and while this was not them, while this gave her a level of control she had never had there, it actually _was_ nice to have her own island again. Not that she was going to admit that to Luisa anytime soon.

The problem was that Rose never quite felt like she was done with her island.

Rose would move things and shift things and add things and shuffle her villagers around and then, just as soon as she was finished, a few days later she would start again, moving and adding and shifting and shuffling. No matter what she did, she didn’t feel _content_ with it. Maybe she just wanted to delay the inevitable.

Eventually, Rose realized that she was still trying to make her island to appeal to Luisa, instead of based on her own sensibilities, and that her restlessness was because she kept switching between designing the island _she_ wanted and designing one that she knew _Luisa_ would love. And she kept avoiding letting Luisa see it because she just knew it wouldn’t live up to what Luisa wanted, and it was easier to wait than it was to show it to her.

Rose wasn’t _afraid_ by any means. She couldn’t be afraid, not really.

She just—

No.

You know what?

It was _her_ island, and if she wanted to trash the whole thing, she would.

No matter _what_ Luisa wanted.


	43. roisa meets animal crossing pt. 6

“So, is it done?” Luisa curled up on the couch next to Rose and nudged her with one foot.

“Hm?” Rose moved away and stared up from her Switch. “Your feet are so _cold_.”

“Well, then you’re supposed to warm me up.” Luisa scooted a little closer and curled up against Rose, looking at the console in her hands. “What’re you playing?”

Rose showed her the screen – Pokemon, again, like she hadn’t been playing it in a while. Clara the Cinderace stared back at Luisa from their little tent and then stalked off to go play with Rose’s other Pokemon, her other teammates. Then Rose hit the power button and put the console over on the side table. “I’ve gotten a little bored with all of it.” She pressed a kiss to Luisa’s cheek. “This is better.”

Luisa grinned. “Of _course_ , this is better. This is real life.” She interlaced her fingers with Rose’s and gave them a gentle squeeze. “ _But what I was asking was_ if your island was done. I noticed you haven’t been playing Animal Crossing at all lately, and—”

Rose winced. “I trashed the whole thing. I got tired of trying to make everything perfect, and I don’t want you to see it.” She looked away, over at her console. “I just don’t want to play anymore.”

“Okay,” Luisa sad with a little nod. “I’m okay with not seeing it. Your island is _yours_ , you know. If you don’t want me there, that’s fine.” She pressed a kiss to Rose’s cheek. “But will you come see mine now? I’ve been waiting for _months_ for you to see it, and it’s been…well, I don’t think it’s ever going to be really done the way I want it because I keep making little changes here and there and getting different recipes and playing around with new ideas, but it’s _close_ , you know? And I just….” She looked down briefly, not meeting Rose’s eyes. “I want you to see it. I’m really proud of it.” She bit her lower lip. “You don’t have to _like_ it or _lie_ about liking it or anything. I don’t care if you like it. I just want you to see it.”

“Liar,” Rose said, kissing Luisa’s forehead. “You care if I like it, otherwise you wouldn’t keep badgering me about seeing it.”

Luisa’s head popped up, and she met Rose’s eyes with a stare. “I want to share something I did and am _actually proud of_ with you! But you don’t have to lie about liking it. You’re not my—”

“Don’t say I’m not your mom because I was your _stepmom_ , young lady, so I can totally—”

“ _Don’t call me young lady when you’re younger than me._ ” Luisa stuck her tongue out at Rose and then scowled and made a horrible face. “And quit reminding me that you were my stepmom. It’s not a good feeling. You’re not my stepmom; you’re my wife, and I love you, and _ew_.” She gave Rose a little shove. “Don’t _say_ that.”

Rose chuckled and brushed strands of Luisa’s hair out of her face. “Okay. I won’t say it again. For a little while, anyway.”

“Ugh, _never_ , Rose. You will _never_ say it again. _Please._ ”

Rose shrugged. “When it causes such a visceral reaction from you? I don’t know, Lu.” She began to curl Luisa’s hair around one of her fingers. “You’re cute when you’re disgusted with me.”

Luisa pouted. “But I don’t _like it_ , Rose. You shouldn’t be so mean to me.” She nudged her with her elbow. “And you should come see my island.”

“ _Later_ ,” Rose groaned. “I just put it down, and right now,” she wrapped one arm around Luisa’s waist and pulled her closer against her, “I just want to spend time with you. Not on a video game. In real life. In our real house. On our real couch. Not the fake video game ones.”

Luisa huffed a little bit. “Fine. But _tomorrow_ , you’re going to come visit my island and then if you don’t want to play the game ever again after that, then _fine_ , but you’re going to get on one last time tomorrow and see what I’ve made.”

“Tomorrow,” Rose agreed, and she leaned forward, giving Luisa a gentle kiss in an attempt to sooth the frown from her lips. “I’ll go visit tomorrow.” She brushed a hand through Luisa’s hair again and leaned against her. “I’ll put on my best, most _me_ outfit,” she continued, slowly leaning her back, pressing another kiss to Luisa’s cheek, “and I’ll make sure my hairstyle is done just right,” she pressed one to her jaw, “and—”

“Rose,” Luisa interrupted, giving her a blank stare. “Are you trying to use coming to visit me in Animal Crossing as a way to sweet talk me into sex?”

“Only if it’s working,” Rose admitted, meeting her eyes with a sheepish grin. She met Luisa’s eyes. “Is it?”

Luisa held Rose’s gaze. “I’m not sure. It’s kind of making me uncomfortable. I don’t think that’s what Animal Crossing is meant for. It’s a _children’s game_ , Rose.”

Rose just shrugged. “A lot of children’s games are used for a lot of things they aren’t supposed to. Take _Twister_ , for instance.” She pressed another kiss just to Luisa’s pulse point. “That’s supposed to be a children’s game, too, but—”

“ _Rose._ ” Luisa put a hand on the center of Rose’s chest and pushed her away ever so gently. “If you want to talk me into sex or turn me on, there are hundreds of other ways you _know_ work. Quit trying to use this one. You can even use lawyer speak because that’s just mumbo-jumbo that I don’t really listen to. But I actually would _engage_ with this conversation, and it’s not sexy.” She frowned. “Speak _sexy_ to me, Rose.”

Rose laughed and nodded, brushing her nose against Luisa’s. “Would it be better if I didn’t say anything at all?” she asked.

Luisa let her head lean to one side, and her eyes sparkled. “No. I _like_ when I make you talk.”


	44. the lint baby

Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Janet.

The problem is that when we start stories with _once upon a time_ , we hope and assume that they will be happy stories. Those words indicate _fairytale_ and fairytale as a genre tells us that, no matter what happens, there’s a happy ending. This isn’t always true – the original version of _The Little Mermaid_ , for instance, definitely didn’t have a happy ending. And _Snow White_ , despite having a happy ending, was also quite gruesome in the death of its major villain – all of that dancing with iron slippers made red hot until her feet burned and she died – that’s _gruesome_ , if you really think about it.

We’re predisposed, perhaps, to thinking fairytales will have happy endings. The prince and princess will end up together. The hero will save the damsel (or perhaps the other way around, although this is often less likely). The trials will be completed by the third son (or daughter), and their luck will get them through. Animals are meant to help, not to hinder, regardless of how much of a trickster they may be. And goodness is always, always, _always_ rewarded.

This story, she tells me, is not like that.

Not like that at all.

* * *

Once upon a time, there was a seamstress who was desperate to have a child. She was widowed early in life; her husband had died during the war with the trolls – he’d been on the front lines because he didn’t have any skills to keep him in the back – he wasn’t a blacksmith, he wasn’t a doctor, and he wasn’t rich. His heart hadn’t been torn out by any of the witches, as far as she knew or heard; he had simply died, as people do in wars. The woman spent her years alone, wishing for a child that she knew she could not have without being unfaithful to her long dead husband or without being shamed by the women who still lived in the village.

Besides, none of the other men would have her. She had a deep scar like lightning etched into her left eye, and more often than not it was swollen shut, so that she was not able to see through it. Her teeth were crooked, and her nose was bent, and the women in the village often suggested that her clothes were the work of witchery and not of her nimble little fingers. They were, of course, wrong. The seamstress had no magical bone in her body.

And yet magic still came to her.

One day, desperate as she was, the seamstress took the leftover scraps from the floor of her shop and began to stitch them together into the likeness of a human body. The body was mismatched, since it was stitched together of scraps – all plaid and dotted and different weaves – but she meshed them together as carefully and as beautifully as she could. She gave the scrap body two different-colored buttons for eyes – one a deep, mottled brown and the other a bright, shining blue – but as she stitched the blue button into place, it split down the middle. She stitched a thin scar through the blue eye to mimic the one on her own, as though that scar split the eye in two, even though she herself had done it quite by accident. She gave the body a sly little smile and a triangle for a nose, and when she was done, she filled it not with cotton stuffing but with the scattered pieces of lint she could find from her floor. The body was not soft, but it was there, and it was real, and it was hers.

At first, the seamstress called the body her lint baby – _my lint baby_ – and, eventually, those words formed together to become _Melinda_. It wasn’t a name the seamstress liked, and it certainly wasn’t one she would have named her child if she had ever had one. And yet, somehow, the name stuck.

The seamstress hid the little lint baby in her home, and she left it there day after day as she worked.

* * *

You would think, given that this is a fairytale, that somehow the seamstress had infused the lint baby with some of her life and that somehow the baby would come to life.

This, of course, is not entirely true.

The seamstress did nothing that would give the lint baby life. She only crafted it.

And yet, somehow, in the course of things, the baby came alive anyway.

It didn’t call itself Melinda, though. It thought Melinda was a stupid name.

It fashioned itself a new one.


	45. roisa at pride pt. 1

“Why did you bring me with you?”

Rose’s voice is soft, and she looks down at her pale white hands – Luisa follows her gaze. They haven’t moved from her car; she’d made sure to drive because she’d been what feels like hundreds of times before, and she knows this part of the city better than anyone else in her entire family, including the drivers. She didn’t want to get stuck in traffic, and she wanted to be able to find somewhere private to park for just this sort of conversation.

“Because I thought you might want to go,” Luisa says, voice equally soft, like down feathers in a brand new pillow. “You could come as my chaperone and then no one’s worried about me drinking and no one’s worried about why you’re here.” She reaches over and places one hand on top of Rose’s, gentling turning it over so that she can interlace their fingers together. “Was that not okay?”

Rose doesn’t look up. She watches as Luisa’s thumb begins to rub circles on her skin.

“I know it’s not the same,” Luisa continues, “as if you were out and going, but I thought you would want to celebrate.”

“What’s there to celebrate?” Rose asks, her hand limp in Luisa’s. “I’m still married to your father, and I’m still afraid to be with you.” She still doesn’t look up, and her voice is heavy, despite how quietly she is speaking. “I don’t see how being here helps.”

Luisa gives Rose’s hand a squeeze and held it, tight, in her hand. “Just forget about all of that for a while. Just be here, and be you, and no one else will care.”

“What if someone takes pictures?” Rose returns the squeeze, but it’s so tight that Luisa can feel her white painted nails digging into her skin. “What if your father finds out?”

“He won’t. Dad’s never been one to look through pictures of my exploits or places where there _might be_ my exploits.” Luisa laughs, shaking her head. “He has actively avoided every bar in the city just because he’s afraid one of them has my name in some award spot on the wall. Trust me, he won’t look.” She reaches over and very carefully lifts Rose’s face, guiding her so that their eyes can meet. “You don’t have to go in if you don’t want to.” Her thumb brushes along Rose’s cheekbone. “I won’t drink. You can go shopping downtown. No one will know.”

Rose closes her eyes and leans her face into the warmth of Luisa’s hand. She nods, brushing the tip of her nose against Luisa’s palm. “I _want_ to go with you,” she says, hesitant, and presses a kiss to the center of Luisa’s hand, “but I’m afraid. I’m afraid of who might see us…of who might see _me_.” She opens her eyes, and crystal blue as they are, they seem like a sky full of storms – _rain_ – instead of the normally cloudless sky they seem to be in every other moment they’ve spent together.

“It’s okay. That’s okay, don’t worry.” Luisa leans forward, lips brushing against Rose’s. Then her eyes light up – not with mischief, the way that Rose’s sometimes do, but with a lightbulb of understanding. “Stay here,” she says, still close enough to Rose for her breath to be hot on her lips. “I have an idea.”

“Luisa,” Rose says, voice tight, as Luisa starts out of the car.

When Luisa turns back, she can see panic in Rose’s eyes. “Don’t worry,” she says again, halfway out of the car. “I have a plan. This will work. Trust me.”

She notes the little half-moons in the back of her right hand as she hurries out of the parking garage. A couple of them are tinged with shiny red. Her stomach flips.

_She hurries._

Rose is still sitting in the car when Luisa returns. Her eyes aren’t focused on her hands or down in her lap anymore; instead, they are searching through the windows, and Luisa assumes she’s looking for any trace of her, probably wondering if she can leave or if she will have to sit there for hours before she returns.

Luisa waves one hand, and Rose turns to her. Despite everything, Rose seems to relax until her eyes catch on the white plastic bag in Luisa’s hand. She can only offer her a lopsided smile until she gets back to the car, at which point she places the bag between them. “Look,” she says, pulling out a rainbow wig and a masquerade mask, colorful and covered with sequins. “Wear these. No one will know it’s you.”

Rose looks at the wig in Luisa’s hand, runs her fingers along the not entirely soft hair. “You want me to hide? At _Pride_? Where the entire point is to be who you are?”

Luisa sighs and looks away. She pulls her legs back into the car, turning away so that she can face the windshield. “I want you to be able to go if you want to, and I want you to not be afraid of being seen…of being seen _with me_. This is a compromise. Although,” and here Luisa turns back to Rose with a half-hearted grin, “if Dad _does_ look through the pictures, he’ll wonder why I’m with someone in a mask and a wig instead of his wife.”

“So you’re saying these don’t actually help.”

“They _help_!” Luisa says, punching Rose’s shoulder. It doesn’t matter how light the jab is, she can still see the red imprint on Rose’s fair skin, a different shade than the freckles covering her arm. “I wouldn’t have bought them if I didn’t think they would help. I don’t waste money.”

“Your entire family wastes money, Luisa,” Rose says, but her voice finally sounds _normal_. She stares at the wig for another moment. “Fine. _Fine._ ” She looks up at Luisa. “This is ridiculous, but I’ll…I’ll try. If it’s that important to you.”

“It’s that important.”

Rose sighs and looks up through her lashes at Luisa. “But if it doesn’t work, _you’re_ the one who’s going to pay for it.”

“What are you going to do to me?” Luisa asks, waggling her eyebrows as Rose pulls her red hair up and puts the wig on.

“I haven’t decided yet.” Rose situates the wig with almost professional precision and puts the mask on after that, the strap holding the hair in place just as much as the top of the wig does. “How do I look?”

Luisa leans forward and kisses Rose much more properly than she had before. Her heart warms so much she can almost feel it glowing as Rose sighs against her lips. “Beautiful.” She grins and brushes some of the rainbow strands of hair out of Rose’s face. “Absolutely beautiful.”


	46. adoption pt. 1

She hadn’t wanted to go.

Okay, that’s a lie, she _had_ wanted to go, but she hadn’t wanted to go _with Rafael and Jane_ , but Jane’d been trying _so hard_ since Rose’s death (she’s gotten better at it, at thinking it, but the thought still sits wrong in the center of her chest, like a big brick wall that she can’t work her way around), and she knows how important _family_ is to Jane and by extension to Rafael, the same as family had been important to their father (and how she wished he had understood that years earlier, wished that he had understood that Rose was just as much her family as he was, wished that he hadn’t made her choose between them— _no_ , that’s the wrong way to put that, her therapist told her not to blame other people for her own mistakes, _Raf_ hadn’t _made_ her choose, but _she had chosen_ )—

Jane still doesn’t feel like family. There’s still something _off_ between them, and maybe it’s that she’d gotten Jane pregnant without Jane’s consent, and even if Mateo has been such a joy, and even if that was such a huge part of why Jane and Rafael were together now, that doesn’t change the fact that she still did it and she didn’t say anything and Rose’s death doesn’t change that.

_Murder._

Death.

Does the word really matter?

But she _had_ wanted to go, and even though she _hadn’t_ wanted to go with Rafael and Jane, they are still all here together. Jane’s been a huge help in getting all of their papers in order, and now it’s just…visiting the kids. Seeing if they _clicked_ with any of them. Jane’s less about the whole _clicking_ process because, as she said, adopting a kid isn’t like adopting a pet, you can’t just send them back if you don’t like them, and kids aren’t animals, they’re actually living breathing human beings, and Luisa doesn’t know who exactly Jane thinks she’s talking to because Luisa certainly never thought of people that way. Maybe Jane was telling herself. _Maybe she was telling Raf._ Maybe it doesn’t matter because she _was_ right. Children aren’t pets. She knows that.

Jane and Rafael are still in the large brick building. They’ve been inside for what feels like ages. Luisa doesn’t know why it’s taking them so long, No, she has an idea, and it’s largely centered on Jane trying to get as much information on each of the kids as she possibly can: names, backgrounds, height, weight, favorite class, age, all of that statistics stuff that don’t matter near as much as the kids themselves. Luisa doesn’t care about all of that. Not in the slightest. Not beyond what the kids want her to know.

They’d arrived while the kids were at school, and she’s pretty sure that’s Jane’s planning so that she has _time_ to go through everything, but really it just means that Luisa is bored. And right now, bored means that she’s thinking. Not _good_ thoughts. Mostly wondering if she would ever have been here with Rose. She…doesn’t like to think about Rose anymore.

“Are you okay?”

Luisa looks up, and there in front of her is a small child, her blonde hair pulled back into pigtails that just hit her shoulders, her hands wrapped around her bright pink backpack straps. The girl’s blue eyes are just as bright as her backpack is, but they are crystal clear, the image of a cloudless sky but darker. A spattering of freckles dusts the bridge of her nose and just under her eyes, leaving the rest of her porcelain skin perfectly clear.

“Of course I’m okay,” Luisa says, her voice soft as a smile dances its way across her lips. “Do I look bad?”

The girl’s brows furrow, and her lips press together. “You looked sad, and I thought I’d come help you feel better if you feel bad.” Her eyes shift. “Well, _we’d_ come help you feel better. But I don’t know where Mia went.”

Luisa hears the name, and it takes a second for her to breathe again. When she can, her head tilts to one side. “Mia?”

“Yeah.” The girl scuffs her shoe on the cobblestone and then looks back up again. “I think she went to get Cat, but I told her not to because we don’t know if you’re allergic or not. But I think that’s where she went anyway.” She tilts her head to one side. “You’re not allergic, are you?”

“To cats? No. But it’s very sweet of you to be concerned.” Luisa offers her another smile. “I’m Luisa, by the way,” she says and starts to offer her hand, until she realizes how _super_ formal that is and how much she _would not_ have cared when she was a kid. So instead, she wraps her hands around her knees. “What’s your name?”

“I’m not supposed to tell my names to strangers,” the girl says, but then she grins, “but I guess if I know your name, then you’re not a stranger, are you?” Her blue eyes twinkle with mischief. “I’m _Rose_.”

And for the second time during their conversation, Luisa finds it hard to breathe. “You’re… _Rose_?” she asks, and she can’t stop her voice from being very quiet.

“Well, that’s not _really_ my name, but I don’t like my name, so I thought that one might be nice, since roses are so pretty, and _I’m_ so pretty. You _do_ think I’m pretty, don’t you, Ms. Alver?” The girl knocks her shoes together. This time when she grins, Luisa can _see_ Rose in her, and her heart _aches_.

“ _Luisa_ ,” she corrects, voice gentle, and before she can think of how best to answer the girl whose name is _not_ Rose, she notices another girl coming up behind her with a ratty black cat slumped in her arms. “Is that Mia?” she asks, nodding over the blonde girl’s shoulder.

The blonde girl looked over her shoulder, and a happy grin splits her face, all teeth and her cheeks a bright red. “Yes! Only don’t call her that,” she says very quickly, turning back to Luisa. “She wants to use a different name, too. I can’t remember what it is,” she says in a hush, “but she’ll tell you if you ask her.”

The cat in Mia’s arms bats at the braid in her dark hair a couple of times as she carries it forward, then its one good gold eye focuses on Luisa. This close, she can see the scar through its missing left eye, the chunk missing from its right ear, and when Mia places it down next to her, she notices that it’s missing one leg. Her eyes flick to Mia, whose eyes seem completely focused on the cat instead of on her. “Hello,” she says, and the girl looks up briefly before looking back down to her cat, “my name’s Luisa. What’s your name?”

“Joan.”

“That’s a pretty name.”

The girl nods. “You looked sad, so I brought you my cat. His name is Cat.” She brushes her hand through his matted fur. “He doesn’t really like people.” The _but he likes me_ is inferred as she continued to pet him, the black cat butting his head against her hand.

Luisa holds her hand out to the cat. He sniffs her fingers, tail flicking once, then turns back to Mia-Joan, who sits down on the cobblestone steps next to her, and curls up in her lap. “I guess he doesn’t like me much.”

“You’re new. He doesn’t trust new people.”

“Ah.”

“He doesn’t like me either,” the blonde girl who calls herself Rose says. She creeps up behind Mia-Joan and taps the cat. His fur bristles, and he looks up at her, letting out a low hiss. “See?”

Mia-Joan gives the blonde girl a sharp look. “You’re not nice to him.”

“I’m not _mean_ to him.”

Luisa waits to see how Mia-Joan will respond, but she just gives the blonde girl who is _not_ named Rose another glare and goes back to petting her cat. The blonde tugs on Mia-Joan’s braid and then wraps her arms around the other girl’s neck and leans forward, her head on her shoulder, before pressing a quick kiss to her cheek. When Mia-Joan turns to face her, the blonde gives her a big grin.

Luisa laughs. “You two seem to be good friends.”

“Yes!” the blonde says at the same time that the brunette says, very emphatically, “ _No_.”

“What do you mean _no_?” the blonde asks, her lips contorting into a pout. She still hasn’t moved from the other girl’s neck. “You like me. I _know_ you like me.”

The brunette focuses on the cat, whose eye has closed as she’s continued petting him. “You make me call you Rose, but you won’t call me Joan.”

“It’s because I forget.”

“But you get mad when _I_ forget.” The brunette frowns.

The blonde shrugs. “So I won’t forget. Then we can be friends again, right?”

“Sure.”

Luisa holds out her hand for the cat again, and he brushes his nose against her fingertips. She scratches along his chin until his ears lay back. Then she asks, “Why Joan?”

“I like it. It’s my name.”

“Does it have anything to do with Joan of Arc?”

Joan freezes, and she looks up, meeting Luisa’s eyes. Then she turns to the blonde. “You _told_.”

“Did not!” The blonde pulls away from Joan and crosses her arms. “I can’t tell if I don’t remember!”

“No, no,” Luisa’s eyes widen, and she shakes her head. “She didn’t tell me _anything_ ,” she says. She reaches over and touches Joan’s knee; the cat gives her a strong look, and she pulls back. “Joan of Arc was always my favorite saint. I couldn’t think—”

“Really?” the blonde asks, her blue eyes sparkling. “She’s Mia’s favorite, too!”

“ _Don’t tell!_ ” Joan turns so quickly that the cat jumps from her lap. She swats at the blonde, who tries to jump away from her. “And you said you’d remember my name!”

“Oh, right, she’s _Joan’s_ favorite.” The blonde gives Luisa a bright grin.

“You’re not supposed to tell!” Each word is emphasized with a punch on the other girl’s arm, but the blonde doesn’t seem to mind in the slightest.

If Luisa hadn’t known it before (she did), then she knows it now (more than ever) – she _loves_ both of these kids. She wants to take _both_ of them home with her. Given that’s why she’s here in the first place, she thinks that can’t be too hard of a stretch. So, without putting much thought into it, she asks, “You both live here, right?”

“At the orphanage?” the blonde asks. “Yeah.” She frowns. “It _sucks_ , though. There’s a lot of crying and sometimes it’s really cold and the food isn’t as good as it is at school, and the food at school isn’t even _good_.”

“What would you think,” Luisa starts, “if I adopted both of you?”

The blonde gasps, and her eyes grow even brighter. But Joan just shakes her head. “You won’t want us when you meet the others. No one ever wants us.”

“ _I_ want you.”

“No, you don’t.” Joan looks up and meets Luisa’s eyes, and if she hadn’t known Rose, she’d say it was the fiercest look she’d ever seen. But the kid is too small and too young, and she has absolutely nothing on the woman she once loved (and killed). “And I don’t want to be adopted with Rose anyway.”

Hearing the blonde called by that name makes Luisa freeze for a moment again. She’s been trying to avoid her name, trying to not make that connection, and for the most part, that’s been easy enough. But when Joan mentions it, she can’t help the immediate, involuntary reaction. It takes a second for Luisa to stop the rushing sound in her ears, but as soon as she does, she’s presented with the image of the blonde girl stunned to silence.

Or _not quite_ silence.

“You don’t want to be sisters?” the blonde asks.

Joan shakes her head and looks down.

“You don’t want to live together anymore?”

Joan shakes her head again and begins drawing something on the cobblestones.

“You want us to be separated forever?”

“No,” Joan says, finally, “but I don’t want us to be sisters. I want us to be friends.”

“But sisters are just better friends.”

“No, they’re not.”

“Yes, they are!”

Joan doesn’t say anything more, but her brow furrows. She looks up and meets Luisa’s eyes briefly and then looks back down again, and in that instant, Luisa gets it – or as much as she _can_ get it. It causes her to smile just the briefest bit. She reaches over and pats Joan’s knee again, and with the cat having scampered off to watch from afar, Joan doesn’t shift away. Instead, she looks up again, brows still furrowed, and searches Luisa’s eyes.

Then the door to the building slams shut. Joan jumps, and Luisa pulls her hand back. She looks to the door where Rafael is standing with his hands jammed in his pockets, looking down. “Stay here,” she says to the girls, and they both nod emphatically.

The blonde follows Luisa’s gaze, and then she asks, “Is _he_ allergic to cats?”

“No,” Luisa says, and when Joan meets her eyes again, she gives her a wink. Rafael might not especially _like_ cats – too afraid that they’ll get fur all over his clothes – but she is certain that he would fall in love with the attempt to make him feel better just like she had. And, really, that’s what she needs to get her plan to work without a hitch.

…and convince Jane to agree with her, which might take _a little_ more work.

As Joan goes off to find her cat again, Luisa turns to the blonde and takes a deep breath. “Rose,” she says, and the word aches as she says it, even as the blonde girl looks toward her, “whatever you do, don’t tell him or his wife that your name is Rose. It needs to be our little secret, okay?”

“Why?” the blonde asks. “Is it a bad name?”

“No. I think it’s a very pretty name for a very pretty lady,” Luisa says, and she watches as the blonde smiles, “but a very bad lady used to give them a lot of trouble and _her_ name was Rose. I think they’ll like you just as much as I do, but I’m afraid if you tell them your name, that’s all they’ll hear.”

“Well, that’s stupid.” The blonde kicks at one of the steps. “It shouldn’t matter what my name is. They should love me just the same no matter what.”

“I agree with you, but I want you to have your best chance.”

“Why can’t _you_ adopt me? And then we can leave Joan here. Or _they_ can adopt Joan. _You_ don’t mind about my name, do you?”

Luisa looks down and brushes her hair behind one ear. “I don’t mind,” she lies, because it’s still hard to say the name, worse still to call her _a very bad lady_ , but the kid’s feelings are more important than her own, “but they have a kid who I think you’d be good friends with and I don’t think Joan would do good living with him.”

“She _might_. We have lots of kids here that she….” The blonde’s voice fades, and she frowns. “She really only gets along with me.”

Luisa nods. “That man over there,” she nods in Rafael’s direction, “is my brother. You’ll still get to see Joan all of the time, and you can still be best friends. You just won’t live together anymore.”

“I don’t understand why she doesn’t want to be sisters,” the blonde says, stamping her foot. “Everything’d be perfect if she did.”

Luisa kneels down then and looks straight into the blonde’s blue eyes, where she’s starting to tear up. “I’m going to tell you a secret, okay? But you can’t tell _anybody_.”

The blonde sniffled and nodded.

“I think Joan likes you, and I think she doesn’t want to be sisters because liking her sister would be weird.”

“Liking your cousin is weird, too.”

“That’s…true,” Luisa hesitates because she hadn’t thought that far ahead, “but it’s not as weird as liking your sister.” _Maybe she needed to get Petra involved._ For all she’d seen of this girl so far, she could fit in with Petra’s family _really_ well.

“I guess.” The blonde sniffles again. Then she bites her lower lip. “You think Joan… _likes_ me?”

Luisa nods. “But you can’t say _anything_ , okay? And you can’t be mean to her about it.”

“Why would I be mean to her about it? I like her, too. That’s why I’m so nice to her all the time when she’s just mean.” The blonde shuffles her feet together, and her gaze moves over to where Joan is looking for her cat. “She’s not just mean. She’s really nice. She’s just quiet. And people are scared of her cat.”

“I’m not scared of her cat. And _you’re_ not scared of her cat.”

The blonde nods. “I think I’ll go help her. You’re going to talk to your brother about me, right?”

Luisa reaches down and pats the blonde’s hair. She’d ruffle it, if it wasn’t in pigtails, but she knows better than to try and ruffle those. It would just make her hair look _bad_ , and she doesn’t want to do that at all. Not when she’s hoping that she’ll have a good impression on Rafael.

The girl scowls a bit at the head-patting, then she goes off to meet Joan while Luisa goes to meet her brother.


	47. adoption pt. 2

Rafael looks up as she approaches and lets out a deeply held breath. “This whole _adoption_ thing…it’s a little more complicated than I thought it would be.” He turns back to the doors and stares at them for a bit. “Jane is _really_ doing her research.”

“Has she found any that she likes?”

Rafael looks up and sighs again. “She’s got a stack of prospective hopefuls that she wants to meet. It’s _crazy_.”

Luisa’s smile freezes at the word. Even if it’s not used to describe her, and even if it’s meant as a joke, something in it still feels _bad_ to her. She doesn’t expect Rafael to notice the reaction, though, and when he doesn’t, it almost doesn’t hurt anymore. Almost. “I’ve been talking with a couple of the kids.”

“You have?” Rafael asks. “I thought they were all at school.”

“Well, these two must have gotten off early.” Luisa smiles and nods in their direction. “They’re really cute. I wish I could take them both.”

Rafael’s brows furrow. “Why can’t you? Is there a problem?”

“No, no, not a problem, not like that!” Luisa says all at once, eyes widening, and she holds her hands up, palms out, to try and pacify him. “But one of the kids….” She sighs. “I think she has a crush on the other one, so she doesn’t want to be sisters.”

“So you’re coming to _me_ —”

Luisa’s grin turns its most award-winning, and she offers a small shrug.

“Luisa, _kissing your cousin is bad, too_.”

“You didn’t think that with Josephina.” Luisa crosses her arms, her smile fading.

“We weren’t related.”

“ _Neither are they._ And it’s not like you _knew_ that at the time.”

“That doesn’t make it _okay_ ,” Rafael hisses, but his voice softens as the girls slowly approach him. His eyes widen as they catch sight of the cat, and he gives Luisa a look that is somewhere between _how could you_ and _I will get you for this later_. “Hi,” he says, voice full of fake cheer. “Who are you?”

“I’m—” the blonde hesitates, her eyes flick to Luisa, and then she continues with a frown, “I’m Dorothy. I hate that name but it’s the one they gave me and they don’t like me changing it. And _don’t_ call me _Dot_ because I _hate_ that.” Her brows furrow, and she swallows once before continuing, “And this is Joan. And her cat named Cat.”

Joan shifts the cat in her arms a little bit before holding him up as high as she can. “You looked sad, so I thought you could use a cat.”

“A _cat_ ,” Rafael says, and he gives Luisa that look again before reaching for the creature.

Luisa stops him. “Hold on. Cat is a very particular cat. I’m not sure he’ll like a stranger picking him up all at once, will he?”

Joan shakes her head once.

“Do you think _I_ could hold him?”

Joan looks from Luisa to Cat and then turns to her. Luisa very carefully takes the cat from her arms, and to her surprise, the cat doesn’t hiss or scratch or react negatively at all. If anything, he sniffs her a couple of times and then curls up in her arms. It’s only when Luisa glances at the blonde and sees her wide blue eyes that she realizes just how big of a deal this is. She moves a little closer to Raf, and he reaches a hand out tentatively for the cat to sniff at him. It barely does before hissing.

“Too bad,” Luisa says. “Seems like Cat doesn’t like you.”

“Of course it doesn’t.” Rafael heaves a big sigh and sticks his hands into his pockets. “So you’re Dorothy, and you’re Joan,” he says tentatively, looking from one girl to the other and then back to Luisa. To his favor, Rafael does not wince, but he does give Luisa a very clear _help me, which of them am I supposed to be liking here_ look.

Luisa glances upward and gives her head a brief shake. She sits down and pats a spot next to her. Rafael sits next to her, and before she can even begin to pat the spot on her other side, Joan is already there, staring at her. “He _likes_ you.” She reaches out and begins to pet Cat, who has curled up in Luisa’s lap. “He doesn’t like _anybody_.”

“He likes _you_.”

“A very unwise decision, obviously,” Dorothy – _Dorothy, really, who names their kid Dorothy_ , Luisa can’t help but think – says as she pulls herself up next to Rafael. “If he were smart, he’d like me. _I’m_ the nice one.” She looks up at Rafael with her big blue eyes. “ _You_ think I’m nice, right?”

Rafael nods slowly once and then turns back to Luisa with that same _help me_ expression.

“You’re hopeless,” Luisa says, shaking her head. “That’s Dorothy. She’s cute and blonde and talks just as much if not more than Mateo. They will get along great. This,” and she tilts her head to Joan again, “is Joan. Joan comes with the cat, and if Cat doesn’t like you—”

“ _But he likes you_ ,” Joan says, patting Luisa’s thigh with one tiny little hand, “and he doesn’t like _anybody_. Except me.” She spreads out on her stomach and leans forward just enough to press her face against Cat’s. Instead of swatting at her the way most cats might, he butts his head against her, and she giggles.

“That means you _have_ to adopt her,” Dorothy says, Dorothy the girl who has been calling herself Rose but is not Rose in the slightest, not at all, _not at all_. She presses her lips together, and her eyes meet Luisa’s. “No one’s _ever_ been chosen by Cat before. You can take Cat, too, can’t you?”

Luisa’s head tilts to one side, and she nods finally. “I think I can take a cat. It’s not like my landlord minds, and if we move back up to Longbourne—”

Joan’s eyes widen. “ _Longbourne?_ ”

“Only over the summer,” Luisa states, as matter-of-factly as she can. “And sometimes in the winter. I run one of the inns up there, and that’s when they’re at their busiest. They don’t need me as much during the school year, and one of the others likes to run things during spring break.” Luisa doesn’t say it – because she couldn’t have explained it to the girls even if she wanted to – but spring break is hard for her. She wouldn’t have been able to say why to anyone, except maybe Rose. And there is no Rose anymore, no matter how much this blonde girl wants to be her. “Don’t worry. We can take Dottie here—”

“ _Dottie!_ ” Dorothy interrupts, and her eyes widen and then narrow. “My name’s _Dorothy_. But,” and she hesitates, looking from Luisa to Rafael and then back again, “Dottie’s better than Dorothy. Better than Dot. It can work. I like it. _Almost._ Not as much as—”

Luisa gives her a sudden look, and Dottie shuts up all at once. Rafael looks from Dottie to Luisa and back again. “What were you going to say?”

“ _Nothing_ ,” Luisa says, trying to grin. “She’s Dottie. That’s a good name. A _strong_ name. And one we’re good with using.”

“Because you wouldn’t like what I was calling myself before.”

Luisa gives Dottie a _very strong_ look, but by then it’s much too late. Rafael gives Luisa his own look and then turns to Dottie. “And what were you calling yourself before?” he asked, his voice as sweet and charming as he can make it – in a version appropriate for a child, after all. Something he’s learned to do in dealing with Mateo and the twins and _all_ of their friends.

Dottie looks from Luisa back to Rafael, presses her lips together, takes a very deep breath, and then says, finally, “I was calling myself Rose.”


	48. caymans 101

“I’m tired,” Luisa said, curling up next to Rose. “I’m so _so_ tired.”

Rose didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. Instead, she brushed one hand through Luisa’s loose waves as the fan creaked every so often overhead. Her teeth grit together, her jaw tightening, as the creak broke through silence that was otherwise only broken by the sound of the sea waves breaking across the surf just outside their window, just across to the edge of the sandy beach, or by the seagulls that swirled outside, squawking – _yelling_ – at anyone they could find for some little tidbit of food.

Luisa leaned up just enough to press a kiss to her neck, not wanting to lean up any more than that, and then collapsed across her lap again. “I want to go home,” she murmured.

“You _are_ home.”

“I know.” Luisa sighed, and Rose could feel her tensing against her. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I know.”

Rose continued to brush her fingers through Luisa’s hair, not letting her gaze drift away from the woman with her. She wouldn’t tell her that she couldn’t leave – she would never tell her that because Luisa wasn’t a bird in a cage and she would never cage her, not the way she had in the submarine, when it was just them and no one else trying to interfere or lie about her or what she might think or feel or how she might act. That had been…not entirely wrong. Other than the whole kidnapping thing, she knew that Luisa had enjoyed it, had enjoyed watching the fish swimming outside the submarine’s windows, had enjoyed living beneath the waves the way a part of her had always wanted.

“You can go back, if you want,” she said instead. The fan creaked once, loudly, overhead, and Rose tensed in response. She forced herself to relax. It was just broken. Not so broken that it didn’t beat humid air in circles around them, sometimes colder and sometimes not, nowhere near as good as the air conditioning but Luisa thought it wasn’t hot enough for that yet and Rose hadn’t argued.

Luisa shook her head, her lashes brushing against Rose’s sensitive skin. “That’s not what you want.”

Rose shivered once, tensing again. “I don’t like going there,” she agreed, her voice tense. “It’s a risk every time. You know that the police are still searching for me, and if they ever once consider—”

“They won’t,” Luisa murmured. Again. It was the same conversation they always had. Not always. Sometimes they could go weeks, _months_ , without having it. But it always circled back to this again – Luisa wanted to see her brother, who could have cared less about her, and Rose didn’t want to go.

 _You could go without me_ , Rose thought but wouldn’t say – would _never_ say. If there was anyone around looking for her outside of the police, any of Elena’s old crew, any of one of the _other_ crews who hated her, they would know well enough to go after Luisa the same way Elena had. She couldn’t let Luisa go alone. She could become collateral damage in a war that she was never meant to be part of.

Rose brushed her hand through Luisa’s hair again, and the fan creaked overhead. “We could go somewhere else,” she suggested. “We could go to Paris again.” It wasn’t her favorite of the places they’d traveled, but she knew Luisa had loved it, had loved buying out an entire flat and just living there, occasionally leaving for crepes or travel, standing nude at the window and staring down at the citizens below. They’d gone there first, after Luisa had left with her again – this time by choice, this time away from the submarine, this time not under the cover of darkness – just _going_ and then they were there and it was like…it was like Luisa had never known she was Sin Rostro, as if she’d taken that information and thrown it into a pit in the back of her mind where she would never take it again. She’d been able to pretend, then, too.

“I don’t want to go to Paris,” Luisa said, then she sighed and looked up enough to meet Rose’s eyes. “I would _love_ to go to Paris,” she corrected, “but I want to go home, and Paris isn’t home.” She pressed her lips together. “Here is home, but here’s not home. My heart’s not here.”

 _Not with me_ , Rose thought. _Somewhere I can’t touch it._

That was the worst part of all this – that for all Luisa loved her, and for all Luisa had her heart, Luisa did not trust her with hers so much as she trusted the brother who wanted nothing to do with her. Who _still_ wanted nothing to do with her – with _either_ of them, even though he had no reason to believe that she was still around anymore. He wanted nothing to do with Luisa’s new girlfriend, Eileen, which made no sense, given that she was specifically tailored to be _nothing_ like Rose – with the exception of loving Luisa – and _much_ like Luisa, the sister he was supposed to love.

And yet.

Rose brushed her hand through Luisa’s hair, and the fan creaked, and her jaw tightened, and she swallowed, and she forced herself to say, even though she hated saying it, “We can go back. We can’t stay long, but we can go.”

She could feel the words sticking in her throat, strained as they broke through, and she knew that Luisa could hear it, too.

But Luisa didn’t fight against _not being able to stay longer_ the way that she would whenever Rose said they needed to leave. There would be nothing fun in returning to Miami, in returning to the Marbella. Rose would spend the entire time on high alert and Luisa would spend the entire time telling her there was no reason to do so and they would spend the entire time fighting because Rose would want to leave sooner than Luisa did because Luisa would never want to leave because she was finally home.

But Rose wasn’t. The only real home she had was with Luisa where they were together and they were themselves, and she was never herself in Miami.

But she couldn’t tell Luisa no.

Speak around it as much as she wanted, but she couldn’t tell Luisa no.


	49. dottielint and more thunderstorms but this time in an airport

Janet _jumps_ as a loud crack of thunder breaks overhead, a growl like those reverberating through the clouds escaping through her curled lips. She has never been particularly fond of storms – lightning, yes, the way the sharp light splits the darkening sky with forked tongues and spitting, jumping lines – but never the loud booming that follows as loud as a horde of children running down the stairs at the same time, loud as the way that sounds sitting in the cupboard under the stairs as they do. Not that she would know what that was like. Her orphanage had plenty of beds. They didn’t like her much, but they’d had plenty of beds.

She stared out at the sky, watching the lightning strike first and jumping when the thunder rolls in – thunder that she _knew_ would follow as surely as she knew another sharp tongue of static would split the storm sooner rather than later. As the thunder boomed yet again, there was the loud – not _as_ loud, generally speaking, and yet it still _felt_ louder to her, not knowing to expect it, not expecting it at all – clatter of someone collapsing into the plastic seat next to her. She turned just as the blonde woman let out a groan, placing the back of her hand to her forehead as though she were some actress from the forties fainting on screen.

“It’s been such a _horrible_ day, and now I’m stuck _waiting_ for this storm to pass before I can fly off again.” The woman opened one light blue eye and glanced at Janet, giving her a wink and a little smile, before returning to her close-eyed, moaning monologue. “ _What_ is a poor girl _to do?_ ”

“Not bother the other stranded passenger next to her,” Janet muttered under her breath. She crossed her arms and faced the great airport windows, staring out at their empty gateway, as though daring the airplane to be ready sooner would make it so. Her lips pressed together in a thin little line, and she jumped again as another crack of thunder broke overhead.

The woman in the seat next to her sighed and scooted backward, sitting a little more normally in her plastic seat, and flashed Janet a grin that she barely saw out of the corner of one eye. “Dottie Underwood,” she said, sticking out one thin hand in Janet’s direction, even though Janet was trying _very hard_ not to pay her any attention. When Janet continued to ignore her, she tilted her head to one side, pushed her hand through her short blonde hair, and shrugged. “It’s okay. You don’t have to talk to me. That’s fine.”

Janet jumped again with yet another peal of thunder.

“ _But_ if you _talk_ to me, you might get your mind off of the storm.”

“I’m not scared of the storm,” Janet said, her voice low and thick and _annoyed_. “I’m _tired_ and—” She jumped again, closing her eyes shut so tight that she could pretend she was in her apartment staring at the city around her and not in an airport staring out at storm clouds and thunder and an airplane that was not coming. The thunder and her jumping felt just like hiccups. “—don’t want to deal with a rowdy stranger right now.”

Dottie gave a half-hearted shrug but didn’t move to another seat. “I’m not rowdy by any means. Over dramatic, sure, but _rowdy?_ That’s liable to get the security after me, and I don’t feel like dealing with them again.”

Janet finally turned to look at the blonde woman next to her. She seemed all angles and lean muscle and bright, sharp, birdlike eyes and drifting blonde waves that must have taken hours to crimp to hold just that shape. Or maybe not hours. She didn’t waste time messing around with putting her hair in certain styles.

 _It’s not a waste of time_ , she hears herself say, a small child running barefoot through the orphanage with nothing but a brush and a thick head of hair that refused to be tamed. _It’s beauty. I want beauty!_

Janet shook her head, rubbed it with one hand, and gave a deep sigh. “Again?”

Dottie’s grin grew – more _smug_ than happy, but it was both, it was full of both. “I thought you’d never ask.”

“On second thought,” Janet said, her eyes drawn to the shape of lightning through the window outside, “I didn’t.” She jumped with another thump of thunder – this one so loud that the windows across from the rattled.

“How about a drink?” Dottie asked, her voice suddenly so much smoother than it had been before, smoother than the sharp edges of her cheekbones, the tips of _most_ of her nails (not that Janet was looking, because she wasn’t). “I’ll pay.” She reached over and patted one of Janet’s hands. “It doesn’t even have to be alcoholic. You don’t look like the type.”

Janet ripped her hand out from under Dottie’s and scooted as far away from her as she could. “Don’t _touch_ me.” She glared at the other woman, her eyes narrowing. There was no please, no maybe, no wavering in her voice, and it held the same growling intensity of the thunder still rumbling overhead, only this time she didn’t jump – _Dottie_ did – and it left a warm, angry, comforting feeling in the center of her chest. “You’re buying,” she repeated, finally meeting the other woman’s eyes.

There was a little light in the back of Dottie’s bright blue eyes that grew even brighter, overcoming the sharp – _not fear_ – but perhaps _embarrassment_ that had scarletted her cheeks as she’d slowly moved her hand from Janet’s chair. “Of course,” she murmured, her voice soft, suddenly demure. Her gaze drifted, glancing down to Janet’s lips, and then back up to meet her eyes again. “I asked, didn’t I? It’s only polite if I pay.”

“Fine,” Janet said. The look didn’t make her near as uncomfortable as the other woman’s touch did. She was _fine_ with her looking, as long as she didn’t touch until she was given permission. She grabbed her small bag and stood, brushing the pieces of lint from her black skirt. “Let’s go.”


	50. drunk tabledancing luisa gets caught by super hot attractive amazeballs rose

There’s loud singing from a few tables down and you don’t want to look. You don’t want to look. You’ve been in this bar every night this week and there is always loud singing and it’s always from a few tables down and at some point it just doesn’t matter who’s sitting there – it’s just that table, it’s like there is a spell on that table that whoever sits there _at least one if not more if not all_ of them start singing – loud and louder and loudest until you get up and leave because that drunken singing is louder than the actually very nice band playing up front. You’ve forgotten their name – the band – but they’ve been here every night this week and you _might_ think that one of the lead singers is actually very pretty and you _might_ be here just to watch them because the drummer has a class with you and he is very gay and very not your type (and you are very not his) but that’s been a bit of a friendship between you so of course when he said his band was playing and invited you to the bar to see them _of course_ you said yes. You just didn’t expect one of them to be very, very cute. You don’t even know her name. You couldn’t remember the name of the band, so of course you don’t know the names of everyone in it—

_The Shooting, that’s the band—_

But it _doesn’t matter_ what the band’s name is if you can’t hear them playing over the very loud, very drunk singing from that one table a few tables down.

At least tonight, there’s only one person singing there. Even when she sings loud, louder, loudest, _she_ isn’t singing louder than the band. You look over after a few songs to see that whoever it is is sitting alone. A normal person might feel bad about this. You don’t. A normal person would look at you sitting alone and come hit on you – this has happened multiple time over the course of the past few nights, and it’s gotten very annoying, so you are very glad that Ms. Drunk Young Thing over there is committed to sitting by herself and is committed to singing alone and is committed to—

_Okay, now she’s dancing on the table._

You can see one of the lead singers – the one you think is kind of cute, with her long pink hair and her big wide brown eyes – stare appreciatively at the girl dancing on the table, and you follow her gaze and…well, you didn’t think you would actually be attracted to one of the drunken singers, but low and behold, _this one_ —

There’s something intriguing in the way that she dances, all alone, on a table top, with no one else around her, singing words to a song that she clearly doesn’t know and is making up as she goes along, the waves of her brown hair brushing against her shoulders and down her back and you think her skin must be very soft under the bright, bright yellow of the fluffy tank-top she’s wearing.

You know you don’t really have a chance with the lead singer of the band – well, that’s not true, you are a redhead, you have freckles, you have blue eyes, and you know that you look like the Sistine Chapel itself in human form, so if _anyone_ could get a lead singer of a band, _you_ could – but you’re setting your sights a little lower tonight.

Because there’s something almost _beautiful_ in that woman singing her lungs out and dancing barefoot on the tabletop.

Then she slips.

* * *

“Wh-wh- _whoah!_ ”

You slip on something of your drink that must have gotten the table wet because you haven’t gotten sick this time, you don’t get sick when you drink anymore, and when you do it’s only after you’ve gotten back to your apartment , and if you’d gotten sick on the table, you certainly wouldn’t be dancing on it because dancing on top of something when you’ve gotten sick on it is a really bad idea _and even if you are a little bit drunk_ (scratch that, you’re a lot a bit drunk, you’re dancing on a table, Luisa, _you are definitely a lot a bit drunk_ ) you wouldn’t be dancing on a table that you’d thrown up on. You wouldn’t. You’re not _that_ drunk. You’re never that drunk.

Except for that one time in Philly, and we don’t talk about that, that didn’t really happen, what happened in Philly? **Nothing.** Absolutely nothing happened in Philly! Certainly not throwing up on a table and then dancing on it. Nope, nope, _not at all_.

But that’s not the point! The point is that you are _currently_ slipping on _something_ and it _must_ be your drink because there’s nothing else it could be, you must have knocked it over while you were, you know, dancing barefoot on the table like the bartender told you not to do tonight, please, Luisa, _please_ don’t dance on your table, you always fall, and you’d said you wouldn’t, and when you said that what you really meant was that you wouldn’t fall, and, well, at the time you were pretty sure you weren’t going to dance on the table either, because that’s not something that you do when you’re drinking at the bar alone usually, but the band was so good, and you did drink quite a lot (because you found out your girlfriend was cheating on you. again. and you’d broken up with her. again. and there’s nothing to suggest that you’re going to _stay_ broken up with her for very long because you do keep going back to her or letting her come back to you and you think that maybe you should have better self-confidence and all that mojo because you _are_ in medical school and you _do_ have an IQ of 152 but dang it that doesn’t make you suddenly feel amazeballs about yourself) and before you knew it you were on the table dancing and singing and slipping and _falling again—_

At least you know how to deal with a concussion because that’s definitely what you got when you hit the floor headfirst last time.

But you don’t hit the floor.

You don’t hit the floor at all.

Someone catches you.

Well.

That’s new.

And you open your eyes and find yourself staring into what are probably the most beautiful eyes you have ever seen – and that’s not the alcohol talking and that’s not the overhead lights from the band making them sparkle like she’s a fairy and you’re not _that_ drunk (yes, you are) and you breathe a very big, very deep sigh of relief as you stare into her face and then your stomach heaves – it’s the falling, it’s the falling and the no sudden thud – and you have to lean over—

And _then_ you get sick.

Which is probably not the best way to get the gorgeous redhead with the amazeballs blue eyes to take you back to her place.

 _But_ it might get her to go back to yours. To make sure you don’t keep getting sick. To make sure you drink water. To, you know, take care of you.

So maybe not the way you really want, but you think you can spin it in that direction as long as you don’t get sick again—

Well. _Well._

It’s three strikes you’re out, not two, so you think you’ll do okay.


End file.
